


We Have To Stop Meeting Like This

by bluesey182



Category: The Folk of the Air - Holly Black
Genre: F/M, My first Multi-chapter fic, Seizures, Violence, also there's drinking, and they're in college, coming in a later chapter to be posted soon, mentions of child abuse, there's swearing and later on they do hook up so..., written by someone who has them
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-27
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2020-10-29 03:48:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 39,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20790116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluesey182/pseuds/bluesey182
Summary: an AU in which they meet because Cardan can't drivethis is my first multi-chapter fic and i'm a bit nervous about it but also excited??? idk how many chapter it'll be or how often i'll update but i hope you enjoy :)





	1. Chapter 1

Jude was pissed.

As she had been pulling up to a red light there was a sudden violent force that threw her forward in her seat. One glance in the rearview mirror confirmed that some jackass had just rear-ended her. Which was perfect, it was fine, but of course it actually wasn’t. As she pulled over to the side of the road--the other driver following behind her--she tried to tamp down her anger as best she could. Easier said than done when she had been in a bad mood to begin with.

Now she threw open her door with more force than necessary and jumped down from her Jeep as the other driver took his sweet time getting out, and her hold on her anger was already slipping. Finally a boy gracefully climbed out the driver’s side window-- _ why the window? _ \--of his car and smiled at her like he hadn’t just crashed into her.

Noticing her stare he said, “The door doesn’t work. I broke it when I hit a pole at the gas station.”

“So you make a habit of getting into accidents, then,” she replied flatly, refusing to return any of the pep that had been in his tone.

The boy shrugged and flashed her that smile again. Maybe he was trying to be charming but it wasn’t going to work on Jude. She was immune to jackass.

He had curling black hair that kept falling into his eyes, which were nearly as dark as his crown of locks. The boy was tall and slender but held himself like he thought he was King. Everything about him dripped arrogance and money and his lack of concern for the dented front-end of his BMW further confirmed his social status.

Jude hated him instantly.

“So anyway,” he said into the silence as Jude busied herself looking at her car for damage (there was none, his car was smaller and had slipped under her bumper leaving her with only a small scratch in the paint), “sorry for hitting your car but I’m actually running late for--”

“Hold on, are you serious?” Jude interrupted. 

He replied only with, “Pardon?”

And just like that Jude lost her cool. “You drive like a goddamn idiot and crash into  _ my car  _ and then you pull over to the side of the road just to tell me ‘sorry but bye’?! Are you serious?!”

“You’re right,” he mused, and for a second she thought he might have actually come to his senses. “I don’t know why I pulled over at all.”

“You little sh--”

“Jude!” Taryn’s voice came from the direction of the open passenger side window. Damn her twin for always keeping her in check. Still, Jude stopped short and closed her eyes for the count of three, breathing through her nose as she tried to regain composure.

“Alright,” she said with only a hint of anger betraying the steadiness in her voice, “I’ll just take a few pictures of the cars for insurance and you can give me your number and then we can both go, okay?”

“I don’t think a girl has ever asked me for my number with that much annoyance in her voice before.”

“I’m not hitting on you, you dumbass! You hit my car and I need your information in case you fucked it up and I need you to pay for it!” 

The boy raised his eyebrows and pointedly looked at her dent-free rear bumper. But this was about principle and Jude refused to back down. Instead she thrust her phone towards him, nearly hitting him in the stomach with it. 

“Just give me your number,” she growled.

He took the phone, typed something in, and gave it back to her.

“Now,” he said too loudly, “if we’re done here…” And with that he took an exaggerated, mocking bow and headed back to his car. “Sorry again about hitting your car, darling!”

Jude’s cheeks heated with anger as she watched him slip effortlessly back through the window, start the car, and drive off without another word. She took a brief, glorious moment to imagine what it would have felt like to wring his neck before she stormed back into her own vehicle and slammed the door behind her.

“He was pretty cute,” Taryn said after several beats of silence.

Jude huffed and started the car.


	2. Chapter 2

Statistics was going to be the death of Jude. She had been doing her homework for stats for over two hours and was still no closer to understanding a single goddamn thing she was doing. Her nerves were frayed almost to their ends and she knew without looking that she looked like a crazy woman with bloodshot eyes and hair knotted from raking her hands through it every ten seconds. She needed a break. She needed a lighter to set the homework on fire. 

She needed to set the _college_ on fire. 

Before she could further contemplate the destruction of her school, a load crash came from the apartment’s kitchen, promptly followed by the sound of shattering glass and Taryn muttering, “Buttercup!”

That was as good an excuse as any to take a break. Jude padded through the hallway to the kitchen to see Taryn towering over the remnants of a bowl and an orange cat looking sickeningly satisfied with itself.

“Cat knock a dish off the counter again?” Jude asked as she navigated through the broken glass to the fridge to get some juice.

Taryn sighed. “Yeah.” 

Where Jude was loud and competitive, her twin Taryn did everything quietly. She spoke quietly, moved quietly, even as she scolded the cat her voice was lower than Jude would have used on the infernal creature. Still, it was Taryn’s cat so Jude had no room to tell her how to discipline it.

“Jude?”

“What?”

“There’s this party tonight,” Taryn said as she began sweeping the broken glass into the tray. “And this guy I like is going to be there…”

A moan of annoyance escaped from behind Jude’s lips before she could stop herself. “Taryn–”

“Please come with me,” her sister begged.

Jude glowered down at her from where she had perched herself on the counter with the juice container. “I have homework.”

“Yes, and I’ve heard you swearing to yourself about it for the last two hours. You want a break and you know it.”

“Can’t Vivi go with you?” Jude asked, even though she already knew she was going to say yes. It was nearly impossible to deny her twin anything she asked for. Still, Jude couldn’t help trying to pawn the party off to their older sister.

“Vivi,” Taryn began as she dumped the swept up bits into the trashcan under the sink, “has a date tonight with her new girlfriend.”

Jude didn’t know Vivi had a new girlfriend. She felt a small spark of irritation that her older sister hadn’t told her build in her chest before she quickly tamped it down. Taryn was looking at Jude with those big doe eyes and Jude made a show of taking a deep breath and hopping off the counter to throw away the now empty juice container. She dragged it out by pretending to care enough about her hair to fix it, and straightening out her shirt, and scratching at an invisible stain on her pants. Taryn saw through it and pleaded, “Juuuuuude.”

“Fine, I’ll go.” Taryn actually started to jump up and down and _clap_ like a child. Jude rolled her eyes in mock irritation. “But you owe me.”

“Okay sure whatever,” Taryn called over her shoulder as she darted to her room to likely change for the party.

Jude stayed where she was in the kitchen and massaged her temples. She hated parties almost as much as she hated statistics homework. However, after weighing the two against each other for just a second she decided she did, in fact, hate statistics more.

It was going to be a long night.

—-

Taryn was prattling on about some new spring line for some new designer (she was majoring in design) as they pulled up to the mansion. Valerian was infamous for being one of the richest and most asshole-ish frat boys at their college, and even more infamous for getting the cops called on almost all of his parties. He also happened to be the host of tonight’s party, much to Jude’s irritation. It seemed alcohol would be essential to make it through the night without fighting one of the douche bags that made up Valerian’s click. Luckily, Taryn was designated driver.

Jude hopped down from their shared Jeep and came around the back of it, scowling at the chipped paint from the other day’s accident. At the drivers side, Taryn finally clambered down a little less than gracefully in her flowing sundress and heels. In contrast, Jude was wearing jeans with holes worn through them and a beat up pair of sneakers. She tried not to feel underdressed as she walked up the driveway with her sister. Afterall, she was the one that refused to let Taryn help her get dolled up for the party.

_A long night, indeed_, she thought to herself as they climbed the steps of the front porch.

The door was hanging open and already the house was packed. Music played somewhere but was drowned out by all the voices. Really, with as loud as the music was, it was almost impressive that the crowd managed to be louder. Already Jude could feel a headache starting to pound behind her eyes and she wished she had taken some Ibuprofen before they left the apartment.

Taryn made some sort of high pitched, animalistic noise as she spotted someone in the crowd she knew and waved emphatically at them. After a quick one sided conversation on Taryn’s part (“Are you cool if I go say hi?” “I’ll catch up to you later!” “Will you be okay?” “Love you!”) Jude was left standing on the threshold of the party by herself, thusly abandoned by the one person she knew at the party. The same person who had insisted on bringing Jude along in the first place. Already she was miserable.

There had to be a kitchen here somewhere. Jude had forgotten to eat and she needed something to drink, but with every turn through the ground floor she found nothing but people, people, and even more people. She was jostled from every direction, voices shouted by her ears until they were ringing, one room had a strobe light going and she quickly retreated away from the flashing lights.

“Remind me again why I came here?” She mumbled under her breath to an absent Taryn while she cursed her sister’s existence. Her twin definitely owed her. 

It was while Jude was thinking of ways to have her sister pay her back that she finally found the kitchen–quite by accident. She had been trying to squeeze past a group of people in the hall when someone bumped into her and she tumbled through a swinging door into a room that was–well, not empty, but surprising unpacked compared to the rest of the house. She saw Valerian in all his douche-bag glory standing by the counter with a red-headed boy leaning against the refrigerator and a girl with dyed blue hair lounging on the counter top. As soon as Jude entered the room they all turned to look at her and Jude couldn’t help but feel like the red-head was smiling at her like he knew her.

“Is that–?” Valerian started.

“No,” the red-head quickly cut off. “No, it is not.”

“But–”

“Shut up, Val.”

The girl on the counter cut the boys off and demanded, rudely, “What do you want, little girl?”

For the life of her Jude couldn’t figure out why the girl was calling Jude a “little girl” when they couldn’t be more than a year apart. A quick glance at the girls legs stretching out for miles suggested that the comment had been a short joke. Fantastic. Jude’s cheeks began to heat.

“Where’s the alcohol?” She asked, glad that her voice didn’t crack.

With an impatient wave of his hand Valerian indicated a doorway next to the fridge that led into the dining room. As the three of them continued on with whatever conversation they had been having when Jude walked in–the one with the red hair still watching her with his mouth quirked ever so slightly–Jude ducked into the dining room to find the massive table covered with bottles of various hard liquors. 

The voices died down as the door swung shut behind her and she took a grateful breath of air. Strange as it was that the room with the alcohol was the only room empty in the whole place, Jude was grateful for the small pocket of space and quiet.

She poured herself a drink–some monstrosity of flavored vodka and juice she found in a cooler under the table. After a taste test she cringed away from bite of the alcohol but decided getting buzzed on the vile thing would be better than being sober tonight. She turned to leave just as the door opened and omitted a boy still laughing over his shoulder at the group in the kitchen. Before Jude could pull back, the two of them collided in a tangle of limbs and solo cups and her face smacking into someone’s chest.

She jerked back. “I’m so sorr–,” She began at the same time the person said, “Shiiiiit,” in the long, drawn out way one does when they’ve been drinking.

Jude finally looked at the guy’s face.

And her stomach fell.

The boy from the car accident from days previous smiled down at her with his lazy, arrogant grin. 

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Jude said.

“Jude, was it?” He asked teasingly. “Looks like your walking skills are as bad as you claim my driving skills to be.”

She continued to glare at him as he pulled his wet shirt away from his skin and she refused to feel bad about the giant red stain of her drink dripping off his shirt. “Since you ran into me this time,” he said as he tilted his head to smile down at her again, “I’d say we’re even?”

Jude felt her grip on the now empty solo cup in her hand tighten enough to start crushing the plastic as she considered upending the nearest bottle onto his head.

“You’re a dick,” she growled through her teeth. 

“Actually, I’m Cardan. Not that you bothered to ask the other day.”

“It’s because I don’t care.”

His hand came up to his chest in an imitation of being stung by her words. “I’m deeply wounded that someone as bitter and unfriendly as you could possibly not care about me!”

Loathe though she was to admit it, she had nothing to bite back at him. Mostly due to the fact that her rage had left her speechless. So instead of saying anything else, she shoved passed him into the kitchen, but the asshat followed her through.

“Aren’t you going to say sorry?” He asked as the three people in the kitchen caught sight of his destroyed shirt and began to laugh at him.

“Cardan what the fuck happened to you?” The red-headed boy asked around his laughter.

Cardan didn’t even take his eyes off Jude as he shot back, “Shut up, Locke, or I’ll take the shirt off and smother you with it.”

“Oh, promise?” The red-head (Locke, apparently) teased back. But Cardan still wasn’t paying any attention to him. Without taking his piercing gaze off Jude, he took a measured step closer to where she stood by the kitchen door.

His voice was low, meant only for her, as he asked. “Well? Are you going to apologize?” 

Jude narrowed her eyes at him and, instead of stepping back like he was probably hoping she would, she stepped closer so their chests were almost touching. “Fuck you.”

She stormed out of the kitchen to the sound of uproarious laughter from the rest of the group in the kitchen, not bothering to look back at Cardan.


	3. Chapter 3

Taryn caught up to Jude when she was halfway across the expansive front lawn trying to order an Uber. But of course, her phone died before she could finish downloading the app.

“Damnit!” Jude screamed and threw the phone down into the grass, hard.

“Jude!” Taryn called as she jogged towards her sister with her heels in her hands. “Jude, where are you going?”

“I’m going home.”

“Why?”

“Because I hate parties and I hate assholes and this party is _ filled with assholes!” _

“But--”

“No, Taryn! I’m going home!”

“Jude, please. Just... just stay with me, I’m sorry I left you alone, okay? Please just come back inside.”

Jude felt tears of frustration pricking at her eyes, but she didn't cry often cried and she wasn’t about to do it now over some stupid pompous jerk making her angry. She wanted to say no, she wanted to go home and lay in bed and watch TV, but Taryn was giving her those doe eyes again and, of course, _ of course, _she couldn’t say no.

“Fine,” she muttered, defeated. Her heart sank when Taryn’s eyes sparked with joy and triumph. Leaving her no time to change her mind, Taryn took hold of Jude’s hand and pulled her back to the party and suddenly Jude was a little girl again, going everywhere with her identical twin sister’s hand in hers because when they were together they were unstoppable.

“Wait,” Jude said, and Taryn looked at her pleadingly as if to say _ “don’t you dare change your mind.” _Instead, Jude said, “I left my phone in the grass.”

After a quick retrieval, she clasped hands with Taryn again and they walked back into the party as a solid front.

It was still loud. And packed. And at this point in the night almost everyone was drunk. Jude gritted her teeth and forced herself to continue on. On through the conversations with Taryn’s friends, on through seeing the occasional flash of Cardan in the crowds, on through the urge to punch him in the throat when he finally caught her eye and smirked at her from across the room. Her vision went red. 

When the night was, finally, blissfully over, Taryn went out to wait in the car while Jude used the bathroom one last time. The drive back to their apartment was a solid thirty minutes and Jude had drank a solid bottle of vodka.

She stumbled out of the bathroom and nearly collided with someone turning the corner. Thankfully, it wasn’t Cardan. Unfortunately it was one of his friends.

“Hey, easy there,” Locke said as Jude pitched to the side in her drunken state. “Are you good?”

“Leave me alone.” She had meant to sound menacing but the slur of her words ruined the effect. She brushed past him, trying to stay as steady on her feet as she could, but he lightly caught her arm to stop her. 

“Wait,” Locke said quietly. Jude considered throwing her elbow into his face as well as several other acts of violence but dismissed all of those options and instead turned to face him again. “I wanted to apologize. For earlier. I wasn’t the nicest and Cardan was definitely an ass, so I’m sorry if we ruined your night.”

Jude opened her mouth to respond but Locke cut her off. “I’m sorry if _ I _ruined your night.”

“You weren’t so bad,” she found herself admitting. “Cardan just drives me crazy and I’ve only ever met him twice.

Locke laughed, low and quiet. “In our messed up friend group Valerian is usually the ring leader when it comes to cruelty but Cardan has his moments of total douche-bagness.” 

Jude surprised even herself by laughing and Locke’s look of surprise quickly shifted into something softer. He looked at her like her laugh might have been the best sound he ever heard. She felt her cheeks warm and dipped her head, letting her hair fall into her face in an attempt to hide the blush.

“I know this is a stretch but,” Locke paused. Jude looked up to see him rubbing his palm against the back of his neck while he stared at his shoes. As if noticing her gaze he lifted his head to meet her eyes and continued, “would you maybe want to grab dinner with me tomorrow? Maybe eight o’clock at Molly’s? That diner by campus?”

Maybe it was the alcohol running through her veins or maybe it was the way he was looking at her or maybe some small part of her was hoping it would piss off Cardan to go on a date with his friend but, despite her better judgement, Jude found herself saying, “Yes.”

Some tune was playing on the radio that sounded vaguely familiar but Jude was too far gone to place it. The lines of the road were blurring past and she watched them go with her forehead against the window as Taryn drove. Jude kept feeling her sister’s gaze shifting over to her as if to say something, though she seemed to change her mind each time. After about the dozenth time of this charade, Jude finally snapped, “Just say it, Taryn.”

“What happened back at the party that made you so upset?”

She groaned to herself. “Cardan.”

“Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

Although her head was spinning Jude forced herself to peel her face away from the cold window and turned to face her sister. The world swooped underneath her and without thinking she grabbed onto the center console with white knuckles. Jesus, she was probably gonna puke. Regardless, she tried to power through.

“Remember that guy that rear ended us the other day?” She managed, forcing down the rising bile in her throat.

Taryn was appropriately confused. “Yeah? What about him?”

“He was at the party tonight.” She watched with mild satisfaction as Taryn shot her a quick look of surprised horror before turning back to the road. The world was spinning again and the comfortable cotton feeling in Jude’s head was starting to turn into a throbbing pain. “Yeah turns out he’s friends with Valerian and equally as douchey.”

“What did he say to you?”

Although Taryn couldn’t see it, Jude shrugged her shoulders and let her head fall back against the window with a dull _ thud. _

“I hate him.” She hadn’t realized she had spoken out loud until she heard Taryn hum her own agreement.

Without warning, Jude rolled down her window, leaned her head out, and puked.

\----

Hangovers always seemed to be worse than Jude remembered, no matter how many times she experienced them and thought “this is as bad as it can get” they always seemed to get more and more unpleasant every time.

Upon waking, Jude groaned loud enough for the sound to carry through the apartment and she promptly pulled the covers over her face to block out what little light came streaming through her closed window blinds. Several attempts to fall back asleep were thwarted as noise from the world, impossibly loud, somehow reached her room until finally she was forced to leave her blanket cocoon and the blessed darkness of her room. 

The morning went by in a blur of coffee and Ibuprofen and too much noise and light, and oh God she was so hungover. Taryn tried to start a conversation with Jude as she was slumped over a bowl of soggy cereal--she was too nauseous to eat it--at the kitchen table, but the spark in Taryn’s voice made Jude want to stab herself with the spoon. Taryn quickly left her alone.

It wasn’t until much later in the afternoon, when the last cobwebs of Jude’s hangover were finally clearing away that she remembered…

She had a date.

“Shit!” Jude cried as she threw the blankets off her from her place on the couch and bolted to the apartments single bathroom. She showered in a rush, threw on her best pair of jeans with a favorite tee, attempted to wrangle her hair into some semblance of an up-do, and pulled on a pair of converse. A glance at the clock told her she would have to run the few blocks to Molly’s if she wanted to make it there on time. Of course Taryn had taken the Jeep and left Jude without a vehicle, but she supposed a little running never did anyone harm. 

A little running definitely did Jude some harm. By the time she came to a stop in front of the diner her ribs were aching and she was breathing hard from excursion. It would seem she had gotten out of shape since her soccer days in high school. _ Damn. _

At the very least, she had gotten to the diner with four minutes to spare. 

Inside was blessedly cool and relatively quiet once she stepped through the front doors. The hostess sat her with a forced smile before abandoning Jude with the unfamiliar menu at a table by the front. She craned her head to scan the rest of the restaurant for a shock of red hair in case she had missed Locke walking in but her search came up empty. 

_ Maybe he’s running late, _she told herself for the first twenty minutes of waiting.

_ Maybe he forgot, _she told herself as she told the waiter for the sixth time that she needed a few more minutes.

_ Or maybe he’s just an asshole, _she told herself as the clock face on her watch declared the time to be nearly nine o’clock. It was final then. She had been stood up.

Feeling embarrassed and angry, Jude threw a ten dollar bill on the table--a tip even though she hadn’t ordered anything, more of an “I’m sorry for taking up your time for no reason” tip than anything else--before sliding from the booth to leave.

Once on her feet she collided with something solid. Suddenly she was sitting again, not sure what had just happened, until she looked up at what she had ran into.

Or rather, _ who _she had ran into.

“We have to stop meeting like this,” Cardan said as he rubbed the place on his chest where Jude’s face had collided.

“Are you following me or something?” She demanded.

The comment seemed to confuse him. “What?”

“Are. You. Following. Me?” She asked again, venom in each of her words.

“No, I guess I just didn’t realize you had the monopoly on coming here all of a sudden,” Cardan bit back. “This is the closest diner to campus and I didn’t feel like walking much further.”

Right. Of course. She had forgotten that.

“Waiting for somebody?” That teasing tone had slipped back into his voice as he indicated the menu and empty seat across from her. Shame pricked her skin and she tried her best to keep it out of her expression as she stared him down without a response. It seemed her silence was answer enough because she saw something in his eyes change. _ Pity? _But before she could decide what it was, he had slid into the booth across from her in one fluid, languid motion.

“What do you think you’re do-,” her words were cut short as the waiter suddenly appeared out of thin air, as if the sight of someone finally joining her at the table had summoned him. 

“Lovely, since you’re both finally here, can I take a drink order for you?” The waiter was pointedly not looking at Jude as if she was to blame for her “date” not showing up, leaving her to waste the waiter’s time.

“We’re not-,” she started, only to be cut off again.

“Two lemonades, please,” Cardan said with a flash of that arrogant smile. The waiter nodded and hustled off like he couldn’t get away from their table fast enough.

“I don’t want a lemonade,” Jude said as she watched him with narrowed eyes.

“And who says one of them is for you?” Cardan leaned across the table as he said it until his face was inches from hers and before she could process the weird flutter in her stomach he was pulling away and the waiter was there with the drinks. Cardan didn’t look at her as he took the wrapper off a straw and dropped it into his drinks. He took a sip, and despite his earlier remark, slid the second glass of lemonade across the table to her, still not making eye contact once.

“So,” his voice interrupted her thoughts and she tried to hide her small jump of surprise. “Spill the tea, what asshole stood you up?”

She was instantly angry that he had assumed someone stood her up but let it go when she realized that, admittedly, it was pretty obvious. “Funny you should call him an asshole given the fact that he’s _ your _friend.”

Cardan’s eyes flashed with something dark. There and gone again in an instant. “Who was it?” His voice lacked any emotion and for some reason it made Jude uneasy.

“Locke.”

“Goddamnit,” Cardan said under his breath. Jude was confused.

“What?” She asked.

“You didn’t know?”

“Didn’t know what?” Now she was getting irritated.

“Locke just started dating your sister.”

The words made ice spread through Jude’s veins, quickly replaced by the burning heat of her rage. Why did he ask her out then? Was Cardan messing with her? And, if he wasn’t, why hadn’t Taryn _ told her? _

All of her confusion came out in one choked out word, “Why?”

Seeming to understand what she meant, Cardan ran a hand through his long hair. “Look, Locke’s an ass that likes to mess with people’s lives. He probably saw a chance to cause drama with you and your sister and have a good laugh about it in the meantime so he took it.”

“What the fuck.” Jude said rather astutely.

“Yeah,” Cardan agreed quietly. “He’s a dick.

“And yet your friends with him, so what does that say about you?” Jude meant it to be teasing but the anger still boiling in her veins made her voice come out more harsh.

Cardan winced--at her tone or at her question, she didn’t know. “It’s,” he began but trailed off before starting again a beat later. “It’s complicated.”

Jude pretended to consider his words for a moment. “Mm, no. No, I don’t think it is.” She felt a small amount of satisfaction as Cardan winced again and started staring into his drink where he was moving the ice around with his straw. 

“We grew up together,” he spoke into the silence after Jude was sure he wouldn’t say anything at all. She waited, expecting more of an explanation, but when it became clear there was none, she said, 

“And?”

“And… it’s complicated.”

Jude rolled her eyes and suddenly realized that she had been sitting there for several minutes with Cardan instead of just leaving like she should have in the first place. Feeling annoyed with herself, she started to get out of the booth again, intending to go home and hopefully never run into Cardan again. But he stopped her when he quietly said her name. Despite her better judgement, she stopped on the edge of the seat and looked at him. His face was soft as he looked back at her and she felt her heart do something funny inside her chest. As much as she wanted to deny it, he really was beautiful. His eyes were dark as night, cheekbones sharp enough to cut skin, lips full and maybe even a little inviting. Even in his skater boy getup--all black with a pair of Vans--he seemed a bit otherworldly.

“Jude,” he said again, snapping her out of the inappropriate thoughts that had started to creep in. She didn’t trust her voice at the moment so instead responded with a single lifted brow. He took it as an invitation to continue. “Look… I’m sorry.” That caught her off guard. “I’m sorry for hitting your car and for how I acted at the party.”

She was speechless. But the waiter saved her from having to reply by showing up again. “Can I get you two something to eat?” He asked.

Cardan never once took his eyes off her and his stare seemed to have frozen her where she still sat at the edge of the booth. “Let me buy you some fries?” He asked.

She nodded.

Jude couldn’t believe that, out of all the people in the world, she was sitting in a diner sharing a plate of fries and laughing with Cardan._ Cardan! _Jesus Christ, she must be losing her mind. Yet at the same time it was hard to believe that the boy sitting across from her was the same one that had towered over her at the party in an attempt to intimidate her. An attempt that, had her adoptive father not been intimidating her for her whole life, might have worked. 

Beside her elbow on the table, Jude’s phone started ringing. Somehow the volume had been taken off of vibrate and some ridiculous song began blaring out. The noise shocked Jude enough to spill some of her lemonade. Cardan laughed as she scrambled to pick up the phone but when she saw the caller ID, she paused. A glance at Cardan showed a look of confusion at her own hesitation. She looked back down at the phone in her hands.

_ Taryn. _

Jude didn’t feel like talking to her twin right now. Not after she didn’t tell Jude she was seeing someone, and especially not after that someone had decided to pull a joke on Jude and left her sitting in a restaurant by herself for an hour. So, with no trace of regret, Jude denied the call and set her phone to silent.

“Should I ask?” Cardan inquired with his eyebrows still raised at her.

“No,” she replied shortly. Luckily Cardan got the message and dropped the matter. 

“So,” he attempted. There was a pause, as if he was considering what topic of conversation to choose from, before he settled on, “Do you go to Elfhame University as well? I’ve seen your sister around campus but not you.”

Terrible choice in conversation, but fine, Jude would deal with it. “Yeah, I go there.”

“What are you majoring in?”

“Haven’t decided yet,” she replied with a shrug of her shoulders. “You?”

“Well I’m flattered but I’m afraid I’m not available as a college course to major in.”

Jude threw a fry at him and rolled her eyes as he chuckled. “Idiot. I meant what are you majoring in?”

His laughs dissolved into that smile of his again as he threw the fry back at her without much conviction. “Business.”

“Should’ve guessed.”

Cardan pretended to be wounded by her words and she was loathe to admit that it made her grin. “Whatever do you mean, dear Jude?”

She barked out a laugh. “It’s just that business majors have a certain air about them. They’re all conceited and think they’re above everyone else. Like ‘oh look at me, I’m the hottest shit around. No one’s better or hotter than me’. And the worst part is, they all seem to think it makes them charming and that all the girls are falling over themselves to get into bed with them.”

If Cardan was offended by anything she said, he didn’t show it. “Your scathing yet accurate analysis has given me much to think about. But I’m only a business major because my dad insisted on me following in his footsteps even though he’s made it explicitly clear since I was a child that I would never inherent even the smallest bit of his businesses.”

“Then why not just do what you want?”

He shrugged. “It’s-”

“Complicated?” She supplied, seeing where his words were going.

“Yeah.” His demeanor had shifted ever so slightly and, for once, he seemed to be making himself small instead of trying to take control of the room. Jude felt a pang of remorse for taking the conversation down an uncomfortable road and tried to think of something, _ anything _, to say. But she kept coming up empty. 

Trying to stall for time as well as distract herself from the sudden awkwardness, she glanced down at her phone to find three missed calls from Taryn. When Jude saw the time on her screen, she was shocked to see it was nearly eleven. She had been sitting and talking with Cardan for almost two hours.

_ What the fuck. _

“I should get going,” she said.

The smallest hint of distress seemed to show in Cardan’s face, “Have I upset you?”

“No, no, not at all. I just hadn’t realized it’s gotten to be so late.” Cardan looked at his own phone and surprise made his eyes go wide.

“Damn,” he said, “I should probably get going too. I’m sure my roommate is done by now.”

“Done with what?”

“My roommate had a boy over. That’s why I came here in the first place. I didn’t want to be in the apartment with all the screaming and ‘oh god!’s and the banging of the headboard hitting the wall.”

“Oh,” she felt her cheeks heat up again and instantly regretted asking. Unfortunately, Cardan caught the blush and smirked at her.

“Why the blush, Jude?”

She tried her best to glare at him but was afraid the heat of her look was ruined by the red still spreading across her face. “I’m not blushing.” She insisted.

“Sure,” he laughed, “and I’m not a conceited business major.”

Jude rolled her eyes but stood from the booth without bothering to answer his question. “It’s none of your business.” She muttered.

“What, are you a virgin? Is that why you're blushing?” He teased. She could tell from his words that he meant it as a joke but the truth of his words hit her like a slap to the face. He seemed to realize this a second too late and he started to stammer some apology in an attempt to fix the situation, but Jude already had her back turned to him as she stormed out the diner. 

The bastard had the nerve to follow her.

“Jude!” He shouted as he caught up to her in the middle of the parking lot. “Jude, I’m sorry.”

“Leave me alone, Cardan,” she snapped.

“Jude--,”

“I said leave me alone!”

“Look, I’m sorry. I’m an ass and I feel like one, I didn’t think before I spoke.”

“Seems pretty on brand for you.” 

“Jude. I’m sorry.” His apology seemed sincere, oddly enough. Especially paired with the desperation in his eyes that she forgive him. She should slap him for being a jerk, storm off without another word, scream at him for being disrespectful. But the last two hours of enjoying his company came flashing back and Jude felt herself forgiving him. 

“It’s not okay.” He seemed to deflate a little at her words. “So don’t say shit like that again next time we’re talking.” She hated the small smile of relief that spread across his face. “But I was serious, I need to get home.”

“Did you drive?” He asked, scanning the cars in the lot like he could guess hers on site. 

“No, I walked.” Jude’s words snapped his attention back to her face. For some reason he looked mildly alarmed.

“You _ walked? _” He asked stupidly. 

“Yes?” She answered, the word turning into a question because of her confusion at his reaction. 

“Let me walk you home.” 

“What? Why?”

“Because it’s eleven o’clock in a college town and you’re a girl by yourself.”

“I can handle myself.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt that for a second. But I can’t in good conscience let you walk home alone in the dark.” Jude knew that, despite his insistence, if she said no he would respect it. Perhaps that’s why she finally relented. 

“Fine. Let’s go then.”

At her door she paused to face Cardan again, the door propped open with the toe of her shoe after she had unlocked it. “Thanks,” she said lamely.

The responding smile that split his lips made her regret it instantly. Yet at the same time the grin made something in her belly stir.

“See you around?” He asked. And as he began walking backwards down the outdoor corridor leading to her apartment, she felt herself nod. With one more flash of a smile, Cardan turned his back and was gone. 

_ Damn him. _


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> important notes on this chapter, please read: so as some of you may know, I have a seizure disorder and it’s been getting out of hand again lately which is part of the reason this update took so long. i’m saying this because i needed to vent about my frustration and it ended up being in this chapter in the form of a character having a seizure. i know it doesn’t have anything to do with the story but, hey, it’s my fic. it should be noted that because my seizures are a result of trauma they present differently than a typical epileptic seizure, so the writing in this is drawing solely from my own personal experience. ALSO, there's drinking in this chapter but they're both 21.
> 
> the songs mentioned in this chapter are "original me" by yungblud (when they're in the car) and "dancing after death" by matt maeson (when they're dancing)

Jude was not a fan of Sundays. Sundays meant family dinner, which meant seeing her adoptive father (Vivi’s biological father) which always resulted in a screaming match between him and Vivi. Sundays meant seeing their judgemental step-mother who was convinced the twins would corrupt her son who Jude knew from experience was not as innocent as he seemed. 

Sundays meant dressing up and proper behavior and bit-back anger and--the oldest and most tiresome charade of them all--pretending like she didn’t know that no matter what she did, Madoc would always be at least a little bit disappointed in her.

This Sunday, however, would be made worse by the fact that Jude was not talking to Taryn after the previous night’s events. 

She had, of course, confronted her twin about her weasel of a boyfriend (as well as about the fact that Taryn had left Jude in the dark about the existence of said boyfriend) when Taryn returned home early in the morning. Jude raged to her sister about Locke playing games with them, expecting her sister to take her side and hate the manipulative prick as a team, and watched with satisfaction as her sister cringed away from her words. She had believed, for a moment, that Taryn now hated Locke just as much as she did and together they would destroy him. (As you do with your sister.) But then Taryn had simply said, “I know.”

Jude was speechless for a long moment. “I’m sorry, you what?”

“I knew what he was doing,” she admitted, “he wanted to see if I was loyal enough to stick with him even if he messed with you, and if I could be trusted not to tell you whatever he asked me to keep secret for him.”

“Taryn, do you seriously not see how  _ fucked up that is?!” _

“He’s just a little weird.”

“Weird?! He’s straight up a freak! How could you let him do this to us? How could  _ you _ do this  _ me _ ?”

Taryn’s face was turning red but she refused to look Jude in the eyes. “Don’t call him a freak.”

“So you’re really just gonna take his side on this, then.” It was a question, though Jude didn’t say it like one.

“He’s my boyfriend.”

“And I’m your sister! Are you serious right now?!”

“Jude, stop.”

Jude’s anger was boiling over and choking her. She did as Taryn asked, but only because she was too angry to think of anything else to say. She stormed out of the room and slammed her bedroom door with enough force to rattle the doorframe. 

Hours later as the two were getting into the Jeep to go to their dreaded family dinner, Jude still refused to speak to Taryn.

They pulled up to Madoc’s large estate in silence. Before the car even came to a complete stop, Jude was hopping down from the passenger seat and stomping up the walkway to the front door. She let herself in, kicked off her shoes, and went in search of Vivi while Taryn tried to catch up. 

Jude found her oldest sister playing video games with her half brother Oak in his expansive room on the first floor. Vivi flashed her a quick smile before returning her attention back to the screen. There was a lot of aggressive button smashing and shouting from the both of them and it was clear they had no attention to spare for her. Still, Jude leaned against the doorframe and watched until  _ GAME OVER _ flashed across the screen.

“You know,” Jude said as Vivi finally turned her full attention on her, “you could have at least given him a chance to win this time.”

Vivi flashed her teeth in an evil smile. “Nope. I was the undefeated champion against you and Taryn in every game we ever played and now I have to be the undefeated champion against Oak.”

“You were only undefeated because you were a cheater.”

“Was not!”

“Hm. And what do you call all the times you tripped Taryn in every race we ever ran?”

Again Vivi flashed that wicked grin before rising from the bean bag currently consuming her on the floor. “That,” she said, “was an accident.”

Just then Jude felt the presence of someone else joining her in the doorway and looked over her shoulder to find her step-mother Oriana eyeing her suspiciously, as if Jude’s proximity to Oak had tainted his being already. With an inward groan, Jude forced herself to face away from Oriana before she could see her eye-roll. Vivi gave her a sympathetic smile that felt more like pity.

“Dinner is almost ready,” Oriana said.

“Already?” asked Vivi.

“Yes, well,” Oriana was not looking at Jude in a way that was obvious she wasn’t looking. “The twins were late.” This time Jude did roll her eyes in full view of her step-mom and Oriana noticed it. “Come, Oak, let’s get cleaned up for dinner.”

Jude moved out of the way as Oak skipped passed her into the hallway with his mother in tow, leaving Jude and Vivi in the vacated space.

“Spill,” Vivi demanded once the two were out of ear shot.

“What?”

“Something’s bothering you. Spill.”

“I’m fine.”

“No. You’re not.” Vivi closed the space between them, pulled Jude the rest of the way into the room, and closed the door. Nevermind the fact that this wasn’t either one of the bedrooms. Against her best protests, Jude was still pulled down into one of the bean bags on the floor as Vivi moved the second one to face her. “Talk to me,” she said more softly this time. 

Jude told her everything. By the end of the story there came a knock on the door. As if summoned by the use of her name too many times, Taryn peeked her head around the cracked open door.

“Madoc wants you guys in the dining room,” she mumbled without looking at Jude.

“Sure thing, Beetlejuice,” Jude shot back.

“What?”

“Nothing.” Jude shoved passed her twin rather roughly and tried to bury the pang of guilt that arose when her sister stumbled into the wall upon having her balance thrown off. 

Madoc was already at the table when Jude entered the dining room. Oriana sat beside him with her back perfectly straight to the point of it looking uncomfortable, but that was Oriana--a perfect portrait of propriety. Oak, on the other hand, was throwing bits of dinner roll at the dog lying on the floor beside him. The dog didn't seem to mind as it caught the food out of the air time after time with perfect accuracy, much to Oak's delight.

Following her entrance came Vivi and Taryn. Their heads were bent conspiratorially but whatever words were being exchanged quickly cut off upon their arrival to the room. While Taryn slipped passed Jude with her gaze set determinedly to the plush carpet, Vivi looked at Jude with an expression that promised they'd be talking later.

That should be fun.

With a huff, Jude threw herself down into the seat beside Oak at the table and quickly became the new target of his food throwing. Oriana pretended not to notice. 

"Oak, that's enough," Madoc ordered. The boy immediately stopped, though Jude saw him sneak another piece of bread under the table for the dog. "Stop feeding Bosco table food, too." 

So he had noticed that after all. 

Oak deflated ever so slightly but not before Jude caught the flash of his adolescent smirk.

"Now, shall we eat?" Madoc asked, though it wasn't a question. As if they had been waiting by the closed kitchen door for a queue, the cooks Madoc employed (he was  _ that _ kind of rich) swooped gracefully into the room with trays of food. Plates of chicken and bowls of some kind of soup were set before all of them, as well as central platters of roasted vegetables and potatoes. All of it was fancy and unnecessary and Jude found herself wanting to just eat McDonald's instead. At least then she wouldn't have to deal with family dinner night.

While Madoc attempted to wade through the usual topics of conversation--how is school going? what's new in your lives? have you been taking care of yourselves? yada, yada, yada--the girls responded with only mild interest while shooting glances at each other across the table. Vivi, either being oblivious to the awkwardness or simply not caring, only shoveled food into her mouth happily while occasionally throwing food back at Oak when he attempted to get it into her water glass. 

"Alright, that's enough." The abrupt clatter of Madoc's silverware against his plate brought Jude suddenly out of the fog she'd been stewing in since dinner began. Madoc leaned back in his chair in a show of false calm and he darted his calculating gaze between the twins. "Talk." 

When neither girl supplied a response, Madoc raised his eyebrows and leaned forward to steeple his interlaced hands on the table.  _ "Talk,"  _ he demanded louder.

They began speaking at the same time. Their voices collided together and fought for dominance as Jude raged about Taryn's betrayal as well as her douche of a boyfriend, and Taryn yelled about Jude's disrespect for said douche of a boyfriend. Vivi and Oak watched with amusement, Oriana pretending nothing was happening as she continued to eat, and Madoc narrowed his eyes as the girls turned their words from him to each other.

"-so disrespectful!" Taryn shouted. 

"I can't believe you'd do this to-," Jude shot back. 

"-just jealous!"

"-is a massive prick! Why can't you see that?"

"Shut up, just shut u-!" 

Finally, Madoc broke up the shouting with the clearing of his throat. Though it wasn't loud, it was a sound the girls had grown familiar with over the years and they quickly lapsed into silence. "That," he said calmly but authoritatively, "is quite enough of that." 

"You're the one that asked," Vivi grumbled under her breath. 

"What was that, Vivienne?"

"I said you're the one that asked. You can't tell them to talk and then decide they're done right after."

"Really? You're giving me the attitude again tonight?" 

"I don't recall ever stopping." 

As with every previous dinner the two quickly dissolved into an argument. Vivi resented Madoc for running off when he found out their mother was pregnant with Vivi, and she resented him even more for only deciding he wanted her after their mother was killed in a car accident along with Jude and Taryn's father. Years of anger still had no resolution and so the two fought nearly relentlessly. 

Completely ignoring the volume already rising in the dining room, Taryn began shouting at Jude again. The noise from all three voices crowded in her mind and her anger and frustration continued to build. She hated these family dinners, hated the years she spent in this house, hated that Vivi could treat Madoc like shit and still have everything handed to her while Taryn and Jude had to claw for every ounce of respect and attention from their adoptive father, hated how Taryn had hurt her, hated how Locke had used her. Suddenly the room began to grow warm. Tremors started in Jude's fingertips and spread up her arms. Taryn was asking if she was listening to her. Vivi was mocking Madoc in the way of a child, throwing his own words back at him. Madoc was telling her to stop acting like a child, Oriana was telling Oak to go to his room as he continued to throw food from the table at the dog. And then--in a single heartbeat-- the voices stopped making sense. 

Jude vaguely processed the sound of Bosco beginning to bark as the old familiar feeling like her brain was turning to ice and melting down the side of her face finally made her realize what was happening. 

"Fuck," she whispered.

Oriana scolded her for swearing in front of Oak just as Jude collapsed to the floor and the seizure pulled her under.

\--------

Sometimes the worst part of a seizure was the reaction from everyone else afterwards. It also didn’t help that this was Jude’s first seizure in over eight years.

When they returned from the hospital Madoc announced that Jude would not be going home. Instead she was forced to stay at Madoc’s where he could keep an eye on her in case she seized again and, although she tried to protest, Jude was in too much pain to win an argument over it. 

She hated being babied. Hated how she was hardly allowed to get up to use the restroom without Madoc jumping to his feet thinking she was going to collapse right there. More than anything she hated having to sleep in her old room that she had spent so many years trying to get away from. The room had that odd feeling of belonging to someone else. She hadn’t slept in this bed since she turned 18 three years ago but she could tell everything was still regularly cleaned. This was her room, but it also wasn’t.

The Jude that slept in this bed wept for her parents every night for years. The Jude that slept in this bed fought for Madoc’s approval before realizing she’d never get it. The Jude that slept in this bed used to lay side by side with her twin sister on most nights, talking and laughing and crying until they fell asleep. She was not that Jude anymore. This was not her home.

Finally, after hours of Madoc watching her like a hawk, he relaxed enough to let her be alone. She collapsed onto the old mattress and stared up at the plastic stars glued to the ceiling above. Every part of her hurt. Parts of her she didn’t know  _ could  _ hurt were aching in a constant, throbbing pain. She wanted to sleep. She wanted to be in her own apartment. Instead she was here.  
  


\--------

Madoc didn’t let Jude leave the next day. Nor the next. By the third day she was losing her mind. She was  _ fine _ , she insisted--but Madoc refused to listen. She was under his watch until he was sure she wouldn’t have another episode, but as the hours went by it felt like he would never be convinced.

Jude was going stir crazy. It wouldn’t be long until she started climbing the walls.

She had to get out of here.

Thankfully her chance at escape came around when Oriana insisted on Madoc accompanying her to pick up her customised dress for some event or another they were attending in the near future. Oriana, having her odd dislike of Jude, insisted that the trip be a couple’s only outing. They seemed to take forever to put their shoes on and find the keys and do all the other BS that came along with leaving the house, and by the end of it Jude was ready to shove them out the door and lock it behind them. 

Finally, blissfully, they left. For the first time in days Jude found herself alone and  _ free-- _ now she just had to get out of this infernal house. She ran up the stairs two at a time to get to her room and dove for her phone before she realized she had no idea who to call. She didn’t want to talk to Taryn or go home after everything that had happened, Vivi would be just as bad as Madoc watching her and treating her like she would break, she didn’t have many friends. She did not want to discuss the events of the last few days and anyone who knew her well would ask about it.

There was one person she could call… Someone who wouldn’t know enough to see something was off and pester her about it, someone who probably wouldn’t even care anyway even if he did notice something was off.

Stealing herself, she scrolled through her contacts until she found the one he had put into her phone and clicked  _ CALL  _ before she could change her mind.

The phone rang once, twice. By the third ring Jude was starting to lose her nerve and was about to hang up when she heard the other line go live.

"Hello?" His voice sounded sleepy, like he had just woken up despite the fact it was nearly four in the afternoon. She tried to ignore the way her stomach fluttered at the gravel of his morning voice.

"Uh, hi," she said lamely

There was a long pause and she imagined him pulling his phone away to look down at the odd number on his screen before he finally said, "Who is this?" 

"It's Jude."

"Oh," she heard his voice shift into a lighter tone, though she couldn't place exactly what else she was hearing in his words. "Well, hello there. I see you finally called me."

"Yeah, I just thought I should probably check in on you and make sure you haven’t crashed into anything else lately. You know, for public safety reasons."

His laugh was immediate and unrestrained. She heard rustling on the other end of the line like he was sitting up in bed. "I’ll have you know that I’m a perfectly adequate driver when I want to be.”

"I don’t believe that for a second.”

"Ouch. That hurt me, dear Jude. I have been wounded to my core.” 

"Oh please, you don’t have feelings."

Cardan laughed again. It definitely didn't make something in her chest flutter.

"So why are you really calling?" Jude would deny till the end of her days that her heart didn't sink a bit at the thought that perhaps she was bothering him, that perhaps the other night was a fluke and he didn’t enjoy her company enough to see her again. That maybe she shouldn’t have called at all. 

But what did she care, right?

“Uh,” she started again, “Well I think you should buy me some fries again.”

“Oh? And why is that?”

“Because you clearly have money and I’m hungry and if I have to be in this house for a second more I’m going to set the curtains on fire.” She hadn’t meant to be so honest with that last bit but there was no taking it back. Her cheeks heated.

“Interesting,” he said with no indication to his thoughts on the matter. She cleared her throat in the long silence that followed and was about to hang up when Cardan finally spoke again.

“Alright," he said, drawing out the word. "I'm also hungry, so I'll meet you at the diner in an hour." 

“Uh, actually… Could you pick me up?”

“Aren’t you afraid you’ll die in a fiery accident with me behind the wheel?” He teased.

“Terrified. But I don’t have a ride.”

He chuckled on the other end of the line. “Fine, I’ll see you in an hour still.”

She tried to suppress a smile. “I’m sending you an address now.”

"And Jude?" he said as she was about to hang up the phone. 

She brought it back up to her ear. "Yeah?" 

There was a drawn out pause like he was considering his words. For a moment Jude wondered if he had hung up already and she had just imagined his voice. But then he said, quietly, like a confession, "I'm glad you called." 

Before she could say anything, the arrogance had slipped back into his voice as he teased, "It's a relief to know that I'm still irresistible."

Jude barked a laugh that surprised even her. "Intolerable, more like."

"Keep telling yourself that, dear Jude." And with that he hung up the phone.

\--------

An hour and a half later--turns out that along with being a terrible driver, Cardan was also not punctual--a dented BMW pulled up in front of Madoc’s house blasting some indecipherable music that was quickly turned down as the car rolled to a stop. Through the windshield Jude could see Cardan lean over and pop open the passenger side door with ease.

_ Must be nice to have long arms,  _ she thought to herself because, owing her official height to just under five feet and three inches, she would have had to crawl into the passenger seat to open the door from the inside. Needless to say she would not have looked as graceful and at ease as Cardan had.

“I hit a cat on the way here,” Cardan said in way of greeting as Jude bent her head to duck into the car. At his words she froze in horror. The bastard had the nerve to laugh at whatever expression was on her face and suddenly she remembered why she hated him. “I’m kidding,” he laughed. 

“You’re an ass.”

“So you’ve told me. Now are you going to stand there halfway out of the car or are you going to get in?”

Jude made to answer when headlights down the street caught her eye. “Shit,” she breathed as Madoc’s car began pulling into the drive. Quickly she hurled herself the rest of the way into the car and slammed the door. “Drive.”

“What’s going on?”

“Drive, Cardan!”

He floored it without further questioning. That is, until they were a few blocks away from the house. “So you wanna tell me what that was about?”

“I didn’t want to deal with my dad.”

“Ah, I see,” he replied in a way that said he really did see. Jude studied his face for a further reaction but found only a carefully blank face. Too late she realized she had stared for a second too long and Cardan’s lips quirked up in a smirk. Heat flooded her cheeks as she quickly tore her gaze away and stared out the window. Ignoring the awkwardness she was feeling, or perhaps not sharing in it, Cardan simply turned the stereo back up to near deafeningly volumes and began to sing along horribly. She turned to inform him he had the musical talent of a dying seal when he flashed his eyes in her direction in a conspiratorial sort of way--he was singing that bad on purpose in an attempt to make her laugh.

Well too bad. He’d have to try harder than that.

With the music up so loud she almost didn’t hear her phone going off. If it hadn’t been for the vibration of it she would have missed it entirely. Cardan apparently noticed it too for he reached for the stereo to turn down the volume but, seeing the caller ID flashing on her screen, Jude waved his hand away and rejected the call from Madoc. Though he didn’t say anything, Cardan raised his eyebrows at her before returning his attention back to the road.

“Wait, is this guy saying he’s the original  _ loser _ ?” Jude inquired as she finally started processing the ruckus playing through the speakers.

“Yes, he is. And if you have a problem with my music then you can take it up with my assistant.” With this he motioned his hand towards an oddly shaped skeleton figurine balanced on the dashboard--his assistant, apparently--and the volume, much to Jude’s irritation, increased even more as Cardan took a sharp, heart-stopping turn into the parking lot of the diner while simultaneously cranking the radio and head-banging. 

Jesus Christ, she was never getting in a car with him again.

The car came to a stop off kilter in a parking space and Jude quickly vacated even before the engine was turned off. Cardan soon followed through the driver’s side window. Like the first time she saw him do it, Jude gave him a weird look over the top of the car and he reacted with only a wicked grin. 

“It’s charming,” he said, indicating the window.

Jude rolled her eyes. “It’s something.” 

The inside of the diner was surprisingly empty. When the hostess approached Jude and Cardan at the door she explained why. “Sorry kids,” she rasped with a voice that was clearly deteriorated after years of heavy smoking, “we’re closing early tonight. We’re not seating anyone else.”

“Oh, no problem,” Jude responded automatically even as her stomach rumbled in protest. Through the corner of her eye she saw Cardan’s eyes flick towards her stomach before jerking back to her face as he tried to suppress a laugh. Apparently the sounds of her stomach were louder than she thought.

Once back outside Jude was trying to console herself about the failed attempt for food when she felt Cardan’s hand gently grasp her arm. She spun around, confused, but instead of looking at her he was looking at something over her shoulder.

“How old are you?” He asked out of nowhere. 

Jude was confused as all hell but answered, “Uh, twenty-one. Why?”

“Because we,” he spoke while backing up towards the car, “are going to the bar.”

“And what if I don’t want to drink?”

“Then I will get smashed alone while you eat bar food.”

She hesitated while weighing the pros and cons of the situation but as her stomach began to rumble again it was decided that bar food was better than no food, and drunk Cardan couldn’t be all that more annoying than sober Cardan, right?

Jude got in the car.

\-------

In contrast to the near empty diner, the bar was packed. Given that it was a Wednesday night it would have been surprising had the bar not been located in the center of a college town. Cardan managed to snag a high-top table in the middle of the room as soon as they entered and proceeded to order a complicated drink order that Jude followed with a request for nachos.

“You sure you don’t want anything to drink?” Cardan asked as the bar waiter wrote down their orders. “Your mood when I picked up was practically shouting for a mixed drink.”

Jude stared him down, contemplating his words, while he watched back with a crooked, lazy grin pulling at the corners of his beautiful mouth. “You know what?" She answered in challenge to his look. "Fuck it. I’ll have one of whatever he ordered, please,” she directed this last bit to the waiter because she could, in fact, use a drink after the events of the last few days.

"Oh darling," Cardan teased with his low sultry voice. "I don't think you'll be able to handle what I'm drinking."

_ Egotistical dick.  _ "Stop being an ass." 

Cardan simply winked when Jude rolled her eyes at him. Oh, how she hated how her heart skipped a beat.

When their drinks were delivered minutes later Cardan took his glass and threw all of its contents back in a single go. His eyes, still holding whatever challenge they had issued between them, held steady to hers until his drink was gone. With a clatter he slammed the glass back onto the tabletop and leaned forward with his chin cradled lazily in his palm, elbow on the table, eyebrows raised in anticipation of her response.

God, she really did hate him. Leaning across the table so their faces were inches away from each other, she whispered, "I hate you." Once again his mouth split into the wicked grin and, before she could second guess herself, she took her own glass and took a hearty swallow of the foul drink. Fire shot down her throat, closing off her airway for an uncomfortable second, before the liquid settled in her stomach like a burst of flames, but she refused to give Cardan the satisfaction of seeing her choke. Instead she returned his raised-browed look across the table and set her features with stubborn determination.

After a moment, Cardan laughed. It was the most irritating response he could have made and yet the sound of it made the liquor dance in her stomach. 

"You're something else, you know that?" His voice was playful. Still, the words rubbed her the wrong way.

"What's that supposed to mean?" She growled defensively.

Cardan leaned back with his hands spread out in surrender, though the grin on his face took away the effect of the action. "You're the scariest person in any room and you're not afraid to make sure people know it." 

Was she the scariest person in any room? It was some comfort to know that she gave off "don't fuck with me" vibes. Still, she didn't know how to respond to Cardan's words. So instead she saved herself from having to respond by taking another shot of her drink. Somehow it burned more the second time. She coughed.

"God how can you drink this shit?" She asked once the coughing fit subsided. Cardan, on his part, laughed through the whole thing. 

"I'm a trained professional."

"Sounds like a pretentious way of saying you drink too much."

"Maybe so." A shrug. "But you can't prove anything." 

"Oh yeah?" She waved the waiter back over to their table and requested two more drinks--never mind the fact that her glass was still a quarter of the way full. "If you get drunk faster than me then you're obviously all talk."

"Jude, are you challenging me to see if I can outdrink you?" 

Instead of a verbal response Jude narrowed her eyes at him and tilted up her chin. A burst of laughter came from deep within his chest.

"It's your funeral, then." 

\-------

Hours later they were several drinks in. Jude was teetering on the edge of wasted. Cardan, on the other hand, was putting his money where his mouth was and was only slightly tipsy. Jude hated to lose. 

"So, Jude," Cardan started conversationally, "do you have a last name?"

"No it was stolen by faeries." She slurred only slightly.

"Oh, you little liar," he purred.

"You little… prick. How are you not drunk?"

"I told you." He jammed his thumb towards his own chest. "Professional." In spite of his otherwise carefully composed behavior his arm slipped off the edge of the table when he tried to lean against the surface. Jude laughed, a bubbly but taunting laugh that she would never have made while sober.

"So you are drunk!" She didn't know why but this brought her a great sense of victory.

Cardan frowned down at the table like it was personally responsible for his slip up, making Jude laugh harder until a few small snorts escaped. "Perhaps a bit," he muttered.

"Did you eat all my nachos?!" Jude gasped as she became aware of the empty plate sitting in the middle of the table. 

"No, I'm afraid that was all you."

"Liar."

"I don't lie." 

"No?" 

"Nope." That grin that had been making Jude's stomach flutter all night returned to his face where--she thought--it belonged. 

"Prove it," she challenged.

"How?" 

"I don't know. Tell me a truth."

"My name is Cardan."

"Obviously."

"I'm a little bit drunk." 

"I can tell."

"And you're beautiful." 

At that Jude was completely caught off guard. Trying to recover quickly before he noticed she stammered, "Well… now I know you really are a liar." 

"And why is that?" 

Was the bar getting warmer? “Because,” she started but realized she was too drunk for this question. Hoping he was also too drunk to notice her avoiding the question Jude drank the dregs in her near empty glass so she wouldn’t have to answer. When she finally worked up the courage to look back up at Cardan he was smiling at her. This smile was different than the others. It was the smile of someone who didn’t know they were smiling--completely unrestrained and goofy in nature. The bar definitely was getting warmer and Jude’s face was on fire.

“Duarte,” she said into the silence.

Cardan was appropriately confused by this random outburst and (sadly) his smile slipped as he furrowed his brows. “What?”

“You asked if I had a last name. It’s Duarte.”

“Jude Duarte,” he tried it out, dragging her name out in a way that felt like a caress. “Hello Jude Duarte.” His smile came back. “I’m Cardan Greenbriar. Would you like to dance with me?”

“What?” 

“Dance with me.” This time the smile that came back to his face was the cocky one she wanted to slap off his face. Or, possibly, do other things to get it off his face. “I promise not to step on your toes.”

Jude felt at a loss. She looked around her at the other patrons of the bar. At this hour everyone else was just as drunk--if not more so--than her and Cardan. They were shouting and moving around and throwing things at each other and paying absolutely no mind to the two of them. Still. “No one else is dancing.”

“And?” When she spun her head back around to face him he was again leaning on the table with his chin cradled in his palm. Watching her with the single-minded focus of a cat. He was challenging her. But something in his eyes made her heart flutter.

Fine. She wasn’t going to back down from another challenge. “Fine.”

A crooked grin much like the Cheshire cat’s dominated his face. Without a moment’s hesitation he was on his feet, taking her hands, and pulling her up with him. Before she could process anything, Cardan had her in his arms, his face inches away from hers reeking like alcohol as his breathing got heavier, pupils blown wide while he looked into her face. He really was quite tall and having to tilt her head so much while this intoxicated was making her dizzy. Without thinking, she rested her head against his chest as they danced to the song playing too loudly over the bar speakers. 

_ “If I let go, would you hold on? Would we fly?”  _ Sang the song.

Cardan rested his head on top of hers. The feeling was both pleasant and overwhelming and she had to close her eyes to keep from falling.

“Why were you upset when I picked you up?” The words were so quiet, spoken into her hair like a secret, that she almost missed them.

“What do you care?” She murmured while lacking all of the challenge she’d been using all night.

“I’m not a complete ass, you know.”

No. He wasn’t.

_ “Is it safer if we just say that we tried?” _

“Family dinner ended in a trip to the hospital.” She shouldn’t have said that.

“What?” The alarm was clear in Cardan’s voice as he put enough distance between their bodies to see her face. But she didn’t want to explain and she didn’t want to look at him when his eyes were that full of feeling. Didn’t want to analyze what was in that look. More forcefully than intended, she pulled their bodies back together and wrapped her arms around him to keep him in place this time.

“And I’m stressed about school.” Although this wasn’t a complete lie, it had nothing to do with why she had been upset. It was only a way to steer the conversation away from her confession. “Statistics is kicking my ass.”

When he laughed it was low and she heard it from where she had her ear pressed to his chest. 

_ “Are we laughing at the danger? Are we dancing after death?” _

“I can help you with that tomorrow after classes.”

“No, it’s okay.” By now her words were nothing but a whisper.

“Nonsense,” his replied softly. “We’ll meet at your place.”

Too drunk to protest anymore and too desperate to pass the class, Jude reluctantly agreed.

_ “Are we laughing at the danger? Are we dancing after death, you and I?” _

As the song came to its end Jude disentangled their bodies. The heat spreading in her cheeks made it difficult to look him in the face. Her eyes settled instead on his throat. “It’s late.” She pulled out her phone in a desperate need to have something to do with her hands. The screen announced there were four missed calls from Madoc and two messages to punctuate it. Not bothering to see what he had said, she shot him a text saying “ _ i’m fine i’ll call tomorrow”  _ before slipping the device back into her pocket. “I should get home.”

“Let me walk you?” Cardan asked tentatively.

They walked back to her apartment in silence. Whether it was from their drunken state or something else, the silence wasn’t entirely unpleasant. Halfway to her building Jude shivered from the chill wind and, without much thought, Cardan shrugged out of his jacket and draped it over her shoulders. The fabric consumed her both physically and in its warmth. The world was swaying. Jude tipped to the side a bit before Cardan reached out and righted her.

Upon the arrival at her door Jude turned to lean against the wood while she faced Cardan. His hair was a mess from the wind and from running his hands through it. His eyes shone from the alcohol and she imagined something else. He was beautiful and she couldn’t deny it. Also undeniable was the feeling inside her of  _ want.  _ She  _ wanted  _ in a way that almost scared her. The words slipped out of their own accord--embarrassing in their obvious meaning, “Would you like to come in?”

Cardan gave her a small smile--but it was sad. Taking a step closer to her he reached for her hand and brought it to his lips. All it was was a gentle brush of lips against knuckles but it felt like so much more as his eyes never left hers. 

“Ask me again when we’re both sober,” he said softly.

And he was gone.


	5. Chapter 5

Classes were cancelled the next day due to a surprise snow storm that happened overnight and given that Jude's hangover hit her like a speeding train the second she woke up, she was grateful for the reprieve the weather granted her in her pitiful state. Getting drunk on a school night was admittedly not the best idea. An added bonus to the weather was the snow muffling the rest of the world. If there was any traffic outside Jude couldn’t hear it through the snows insulation. Her room was blissfully quiet and wonderfully dark since the dreary weather blotted out the sun. Rolling over in bed she reached for the bottle of Ibuprofen on her nightstand but found herself consumed in a cloth wrapped around her that didn’t feel like any of her blankets. She realized she had fallen asleep in her clothes from last night with her jacket still on.

No. Not  _ her  _ jacket.  _ Cardan’s _ jacket. She had forgotten to give it back when he dropped her off last night. And if she now bunched the cloth against her face and inhaled his scent--well there was no one there to prove it, and she wasn’t about to admit to anything.

His jacket wholly smelled like boy and brought back memories of his laugh. Jude’s heart fluttered. 

_ Not good.  _

She flopped backwards, spread-eagle, onto her bed and released a long, drawn out breath. 

Her moment of relaxation was interrupted when the smell of bacon began to waft through her room. Her hungover body demanded she take part in the breakfast that Taryn was clearly cooking so she threw off her covers, zipped up Cardan’s jacket to combat the chill, and located her discarded socks on the floor. When she stepped out of the hallway and saw Taryn in the kitchen though, she stopped. 

Taryn wasn’t alone. Next to her, giving Jude a taunting smirk, was Locke.

Her first thought was,  _ I’m not wearing a bra and there’s a boy in the apartment.  _ Her second thought was,  _ I’m going to kill him. _

She hadn’t realized she took a step forward until Taryn was suddenly blocking her way. “Jude, don’t.”

“What is he doing here?” It was a stupid question, as it was obvious what he was doing there, but Jude’s thoughts had disconnected from her brain.

“He stayed over.”

“He’s been here all night?!”

“Jude, chill.”

“No! I will not chill! This guy’s a fucking prick and I’m not going to  _ chill out  _ about it!”

“Jude--,” Taryn was cut off when a knock came from the front door. Both girls stopped in stunned silence as they looked to the door then back at each other with identical looks of  _ ‘are you expecting anyone?’ _

Confused and a little suspicious, Jude made her way to the door, stopping to grab her keys from the kitchen table with its pepper spray attached to it. For a moment she considered spraying it into Locke’s eyes (he was still looking at her in that amused sort of way) but ultimately decided he deserved worse. She paused at the door, held her breath, and looked through the peephole on the door.

“You’ve got to be  _ kidding me, _ ” she grumbled before pulling the door open with enough force for it to crash into the hallway wall. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Statistics,” Cardan said like this explained everything. When she didn’t immediately reply he laughed that  _ goddamn laugh  _ and she imagined what it would be like to punch him in the throat. “God, how drunk were you last night?”

Those few words brought back every detail of the previous night. Drinking, dancing, confessing things she shouldn’t have, dancing, dancing, dancing with Cardan. His promise to help her with statistics. And, most damning of it all, asking him to come to bed with her.

Jesus.  _ Jesus. _

“Classes were cancelled,” she said lamely as heat creeped into her face at the memory of being in his arms. Remembering suddenly her lack of a bra she crossed her own arms over her chest in an attempt to hide her boobs even though Cardan’s oversized jacket was enough to sufficiently cover them.

_ Cardan’s in my apartment and I’m not wearing a bra,  _ she panicked.

“And?” He asked, leaning down so his face was inches from hers. The challenge was clear, the person to look away first lost. Unfortunately for Jude the intensity of his gaze mixed with her still-pounding head caused her to look away first. Through the corner of her eye she saw his smirk before he brushed past her into the apartment. “Still got my jacket on, huh?”

“Shut up,” she grumbled. 

“Cardan?” Came Locke’s voice from the kitchen moments before his head poked around the corner to see into the entryway. “Jesus Christ dude, what are you doing here?”

It might have been her imagination--mostly likely  _ was  _ her imagination--but Jude thought she saw Cardan’s shoulders tense ever so slightly before they relaxed again.

“Tutoring dear Jude here,” he replied, glancing over his shoulder to look at her still standing in the doorway. There was a question in his eyes but she couldn’t decipher it. Before she even had the chance to, he was turning back to Locke. “I’d ask what you’re doing here but I frankly don’t care.”

“Ouch,” Locke said, clearly not hurt, “why the cold shoulder, man?”

Not bothering to acknowledge Locke’s question Cardan turned around fully to face Jude. “Are you going to close the door so we can do homework or are you going to stand there with the door open until you catch a cold?”

“You know,” Jude shot back, “Just because you said that I’m going to leave the door open.”

Cardan, not missing a beat, rolled his eyes at her and grinned before taking a measured step towards her to close the distance between them. Still smiling that smiling and still looking at her with those dark eyes--face hovering just above hers--he reached over her shoulder and closed the door. She was frozen to the spot, unable to stop him. Her paralysis caused solely by her heart beating way too fast.

Was she dying?

“Shall we?” Cardan asked, sweeping his arm out behind him to indicate the rest of the apartment. It was clear he wasn’t leaving.

Shit.

\---------

“Wait out here a sec,” she said at her bedroom door, attempting to block the view of it even though the door was still closed.

“Gotta hide your delicates?” Cardan teased.

“I really do hate you, you know that?”

Cardan replied with a noncommittal hum but leaned against the opposite wall to wait for her like she asked. She slipped into her room and stared at the mess of dirty clothes and unmade bed and--as he had predicted--underwear and bras strewn all over the place. Quickly she slipped on a bra and shoved the rest of the undergarments into her closet before slamming the door. That was a little better, but the remaining mess still stared back at her like a taunt. For a second she considered studying in the living room instead but the reminder that Taryn and her weasel of a boyfriend were out there was enough to squash that idea. Defeated, she reopened her closet door, shoved the rest of the dirty clothes in there--she’d have to sort through all her clothes later to figure out what was dirty and what was clean--and turned her attention to the mess of her bed. In her sleep she had pulled the sheets out from one corner and the rest of the blankets lay halfway off the frame. She didn’t have time to make it and for a second debated opening the window and tossing the whole thing out to the ground two stories below. 

Which was ridiculous. What was  _ wrong  _ with her?

Cardan rapped on the door. “Did you die in there?”

“No,” she replied hoarsely, her voice a few octaves too high. “Just a second.” She ran over to the full length mirror hanging behind her door to fix her bed head as best as she could and straighten out the rest of her clothes--oh god she hadn’t brushed her teeth yet,  _ oh god _ \--and finally swung the door open to omit the boy waiting for her in the hallway. He was now leaning his shoulder against her door frame and she didn’t miss how his eyes quickly scanned over her before he met her eyes.

“All cleaned up?” He asked.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” she blurted out. Her head was still pounding ever so slightly and she was definitely too hungover for all of this. Her stomach was churning and she was sure that if she didn’t get away from him in the next few seconds she was going to throw up all over him. “You can go in and wait.”

In the bathroom she brushed her teeth. Splashed some water on her face, splashed  _ more  _ water on her face, stared at her reflection in the mirror, and tried to convince herself to go back out there before he started to question what she was doing in the bathroom for so long. As a last thought she ran a brush through her still untamed hair. Finally, she yanked open the bathroom door and stomped determinedly across the hall to her bedroom.

Cardan was lounging in her office chair with one of his arms slung over the back of it. Part of his stomach was exposed where his shirt had ridden up and it took all of Jude’s willpower to keep her eyes on his face instead of letting her gaze wander to that sliver of skin. It took all of her willpower not to wonder what it would be like to take the shirt off him completely.

As if he could read her less than holy thoughts, Cardan’s face morphed into that arrogant look and matching smile as he lazily looked back at her. “So where’s your homework?” He asked.

Not trusting herself to speak just yet, Jude flicked her wrist towards the mass of paperwork currently burying her laptop on her desk. Cardan spun the chair around and started digging through the papers until he found her half finished statistics work.

“Looks like you need more help than I thought,” he mused aloud as he scanned over her work.

“You’re such a dick.”

“Such language.”

“Shut up.”

“Or what?” Cardan finally looked up from the homework to meet her eyes and he smiled in the most wicked way. “You’ll punish me?” 

The timber of his voice made something in her stir. This was getting dangerous.

“Just shut up and help me with this stupid homework,” she shot back a moment too late. Cardan’s smile only widened but, thankfully, he returned his attention back to her homework.

“Grab a pencil, darling,” he said. “We’re gonna be here for a while.” 

\--------

"Alright, let's move on to probabilities." The pep in Cardan's words was grating on Jude's nerves. He still sounded so damn chipper. Meanwhile she was contemplating throwing herself  _ into  _ a wood chipper. 

She flopped over backwards--quite dramatically--with a loud groan onto the plush rug on her bedroom floor and stared up at the ceiling. "Can't we take a break?" She pleaded. "We've been at this for hours and I'm seriously considering murder."

Cardan chuckled. "Who would the victim be?"

Jude shifted, turning her head to look at Cardan where he sat on the floor with his back against the foot of her bed. "Haven't decided yet," she said. "But you're the one alone in a room with me so if I were you, I'd be a little worried about my safety." 

A laugh in response. A flutter in her chest. Eye contact held for a few too many seconds.

Jude looked away.

Cardan cleared his throat and brought his attention back to the sample problems he had found on the internet--basic high school questions, as Jude's college papers were proving to be too difficult to understand the concepts. They had decided she needed to take it back a few steps before trying to tackle the more advanced work that she couldn't understand. 

Not that this was much better. 

"Okay." Did Cardan's voice crack a little bit? He cleared his throat again. "Probabilities."

"Break," Jude demanded.

"After a few more questions." 

She groaned in protest but gave no further objection.

"What's the probability of winning the lottery?" Cardan supplied from the paper.

"Too small for me to care."

"Probability of getting bit by a shark?"

"Fuck off."

"Probability of you passing this class?"

"Double fuck off."

"Probability of you letting me kiss you right now."

That definitely snapped her attention back to him. Was it her imagination or were his cheeks flushed? Eyes just a little too wide? For a moment he looked slightly undone, like he had lost his footing while on the edge of a cliff and only just managed to keep himself from falling. But then his face shifted back into its usual arrogant mask. Still, his eyes kept flicking away from her eyes to look at her mouth.

His question hung in the air and Jude's answer was cut off by a knock on her bedroom door. 

_ Damn, Taryn.  _

“Hey guys,” Taryn said as if they were all the best of friends while peeking her head around the now cracked open door. “I made some food if you guys are hungry.”

As if on cue, Jude’s stomach rumbled loudly. Her attempts at breakfast had been thwarted by stupid boys and she had missed lunch and her body was demanding food. At least now that this morning’s hangover had passed completely she could eat without the risk of vomiting.

“I’m actually pretty hungry,” Cardan spoke to Taryn but still had his eyes on Jude. If his earlier question had been anything other than another one of his teasing jokes then there was no indication of it now. Of course it was a joke. Right?

The apartment smelled like heaven. Taryn had cooked up some delightful baked pasta dish and the aroma filled the space with the scent of an Italian restaurant.

“God, I’m always a slut for pasta,” Cardan said, inhaling a deep breath with his eyes closed to take in the smell, oblivious to the weird face Jude was now making at him.

“You’re so goddamn weird,” she said. Cardan tilted his head to give her a lazy grin and winked at her as they finally entered the kitchen, which was a mess.

“We’re heading out to the movies,” Taryn announced.

“Clean up this mess first!” Jude said, appalled by the idea of having to do it herself.

“The movie starts in ten minutes, I’m sorry.”

Despite her avid protests, despite following Taryn through the apartment pleading with her to clean up until she was all the way out her door, Jude had no such luck convincing her twin to do the dishes. Great. 

Jude spun around to face Cardan, who was leaning back against the counter. “She did this on purpose!” Cardan laughed. “Don’t laugh, you jackass, you’re helping me.”

“I could just leave,” he purred in an empty threat. She gave him a  _ look  _ that he returned in mockery. His beautiful face twisted up to match her own glare. His black eyes shining with the smile he clearly wanted to crack in the face of her frustration. “Come on,” he said, pushing off the counter. Before she knew what was happening Cardan had Jude’s hand in his, lifting it into the air above her head, and he gave her a gentle spin around the kitchen like some kind of dance. “Let’s at least eat first.”

Jude, at a loss for words, only nodded.

“Where are your plates?” He asked. She indicated a cupboard with her hands. “Silverware?” She nodded in the direction of the drawer. Cardan loaded two plates with food, set them both on the table, wiped up a bit of spaghetti sauce on his finger from his plate, and smeared it down Jude’s nose. This finally snapped her out of her daze and she processed that he had made a plate for her. Her cheeks burned.

“Shall we?” Cardan asked with his mocking smile. Oh, how she wanted to smack it off of him. But her stomach growled again and hunger won over the desire to make his face stop doing  _ that _ . Jude flopped herself down into the chair, Cardan sliding more gracefully into his own chair, and began shoveling food into her mouth without further acknowledgement of the boy sitting across from her.

When their plates were empty and Jude was laying halfway out of her chair so her overstuffed belly could stretch out, it was time to do the dreaded dishes. There was no more avoiding the mess surrounding them in the kitchen. Again, Jude cursed her sister, but nonetheless began clearing the table.

“So you and your sister don’t really get along?” Cardan asked as he came up behind Jude and set his own plate in the sink. The warmth of his body, still several inches from touching hers, sent a little thrill through her body. She spun around to face him and leaned her weight against the kitchen counter. He really was quite tall. At least a full foot taller than Jude. She felt tiny next to him and found herself subconsciously straightening her back in an attempt to make herself taller.

“We used to,” she finally answered.

“Let me guess. Locke?”

“Pretty much.”

A silence stretched between them as Jude stared off into the space near her socked feet. “Do you have siblings?” She asked with no memory of thinking to ask the question before it was out of her mouth. 

Cardan laughed softly. “Yes.” Before Jude could ask any further questions he said, “You have pasta sauce on your cheek.”

Jude was instantly embarrassed and made to turn away and wipe the offending food from her disgraceful face when suddenly Cardan’s hand was on her cheek and his thumb was gently wiping the mess away. It would have been mortifying, Jude realized distantly, if she hadn’t been so caught up in how gentle his hand was on her face.

“One-hundred percent,” she said out of nowhere.

“What?”

“The probability of me letting you kiss me right now.”

Cardan laughed and he nervously shifted his eyes away from hers for just a second before meeting her own once again. It was hard to reconcile his nervous laugh and shifting eyes with the arrogance he usually presented. “Sorry, darling. The moment has passed.”

Jude’s cheeks were flaming hot and she fisted her hands into the material of her shirt. “Why do you always have to be such a fucking dickh—”

She was cut off when his hands were placed on either side of her face and he leaned into her to touch their noses together. A little pocket of space was created in that moment. Some place warm and terrifying and exciting and  _ oh  _ she wanted to kiss him. She wanted him to kiss her.

“You’re so easy to tease,” Cardan said softly. Jude found it hard to care about his words when his mouth was so close to hers.

“You’re still a dickhead,” she managed to say with her heart in her throat.

Cardan hummed in response and leaned in. His lips were centimeters away from hers, the space making her ache, and then

His lips 

Were on hers.

It was…

Incredibly awkward. She was definitely doing this wrong.

Without meaning to, she broke away from Cardan with a nervous laugh that soon possessed her entirely. She buried her face in her hands before she buried them in his chest, leaning against him as the anxious laughter brought tears to her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she managed, “I’m not laughing at you, I swear.”

If Cardan was hurt at all by her display he didn’t show it. Instead he laughed with her. “First kiss?” He asked, like the answer wasn’t already obvious.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” she laughed in her hysterics. Cardan gently peeled her away from her place against his chest and took her face in his hands again. 

“Relax,” he whispered. It took Jude a few tries but finally the anxiousness dissolved. She was fine. She was normal. She was absolutely not embarrassed about messing up her first kiss. Except all of that was a lie.

“My first kiss was a disaster,” Cardan said. “I opened my mouth too much. Like a sucker fish.” He proceeded to demonstrate, which made Jude laugh. Cardan smiled his rare goofy smile and Jude felt her heart melt a little bit. The anxiety from earlier was now completely gone and, feeling brave, she took his hand in hers.

“Try again?” She suggested softly. 

“Are you sure?” 

“Yes.”

Cardan leaned in again, left hand still in her grasp, right hand cupped around her neck, and kissed her so very gently. It was still awkward but with each passing moment, each movement of their lips, it became less so. Jude lost herself in the feeling of his lips on hers. She lost herself in the comfort of his arms wrapping around her waist to bring her closer. She lost herself in Cardan.

When they finally broke apart for air, Cardan smiled and said, “That was better.”

“I hate you,” Jude said back.

“I know.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mentions of child abuse at the end (the whole situation with cardan and balekin)

School's work load kept Jude busy for the next few days. Suddenly it was Saturday with hardly any memory left of Thursday or Friday and Jude was relieved to finally have a day off. Thanks to Cardan she had finally gotten a passing grade in statistics. Also thanks to Cardan, she hadn't been able to sleep properly for two nights. She couldn't stop thinking about their kiss. About his laugh. About his hands so gentle on her face, in her hair, around her waist. They'd been texting sporadically since that night but with the craziness of both their classwork there was no time to see each other or have any conversation beyond  _ "how are you Jude dear ;)"  _ and  _ "busy but I'll text you later"  _ or  _ “i have a few minutes to talk”  _ responded to with a  _ “sorry darling i have to study for a test” _ .

On Saturday morning while Jude was putting frozen waffles into the toaster, her phone buzzed against the counter. Jude found herself diving for the device but when she saw who the message was from, her heart sank by the smallest degree.

It was Vivi, telling Jude that she was bringing her new girlfriend to family dinner tomorrow night. This news would have been fine--exciting, really--had Taryn not informed Jude last night that she was also bringing Locke. Jude would be abandoned to the horrible ordeal of being in Madoc’s house without a single sister there to hold her afloat because both of them had found dates to bring instead. She allowed herself a brief moment to imagine how awful tomorrow night would be before a plan suddenly sprung half formed into her head.

If her sisters were bringing dates… why couldn’t she?

Although Taryn had already left for the day, Jude checked all the rooms in the apartment for signs of life (the cat was lounging in the sun but otherwise the place was empty) before she retreated to the seclusion of her own bedroom. She shut the door behind her and found Cardan’s contact in her phone before hitting dial.

He picked up on the third ring. “Hello, dear Jude.”

“I need you to be my boyfriend.”

There was a considerably long pause that followed after her words. Upon further thought she realized she should have phrased that differently.

“Um…” Cardan trailed off as soon as he had started. “What?”

“I need you to pretend to be my boyfriend tomorrow at my family dinner.”

“The same family dinner that ended in a trip to the hospital last week?” He asked, and the reminder of telling him that made Jude cringe.

“Yeah,” she admitted. “That one.”

“Alright I’m in.”

“You’re not even going to take a second to consider it?”

“You want me to go, yes? So why are you questioning my answer?” He teased. Admittedly, she didn’t have an answer to his question. “So what should I wear?”

“I don’t care,” she said with indignation.

“Mm,” Cardan hummed on the other line. “A tux, then.”

“Definitely not.”

“Birthday suit?” He supplied.

Jude could feel the blush reaching from her face all the way to her toes at that mental image. “You’re insufferable. Just wear something normal.” To punctuate her statement as well as excuse herself from the conversation that still had her blushing, Jude hung up the phone. With the mental picture of Cardan in his “birthday suit” still fresh in her mind, Jude went to the bathroom and splashed cold water on her face until she could breathe normally again.

————

  
  


Sunday morning came sooner than expected. Jude had slept through most of the previous day in an attempt to catch up on all the sleep she missed during the school week. When a loud, insistent knock woke her the next morning followed by her phone ringing, she immediately knew who was responsible for waking her. Grumpily, she stormed out of her room and threw open the door. Cardan stood outside with his hair windswept in the heart-stopping sort of way, his black jeans and leather jacket and multiple rings distracting her from his dazzling yet annoying smile. He looked good. Really good. She finally met his eyes.

“Good morning, darling,” he said in greeting.

“Why the fuck are you here so early?” Jude demanded.

“You never told me what time to meet you. And I was bored. So here I am to grace your day with my magnificent presence.”

“Oh my god.” She slammed her head against the doorframe with her eyes closed in annoyance. When she opened her eyes Cardan was closer than he had been a moment before. The warmth coming off his body called her to his arms. She resisted.

“Can I come in?” Cardan sounded almost hesitant. Jude looked at him and saw the slightest of blushes in his cheeks. It made her think of their kiss and suddenly it was her who was blushing. 

Stepping aside, she pulled the door open all the way and made room for Cardan to slip inside.

“What time is this dinner, anyway?” He asked as he showed himself to the kitchen.

“Six.”

“You realize it’s almost one o’clock, right?”

Surprise snapped Jude’s attention to the stove’s clock where Cardan’s proclamation was confirmed. “Holy shit how did I sleep in so late?!”

“The real question is…” Cardan pulled a takeout container growing mold in it out of the fridge to inspect it with a frown. He held the container out to Jude in offering and placed it back in the fridge when she shook her head. “How did I wake up so early?” He finished, letting the fridge door fall shut. “Wanna go get lunch?”

“Uh… I need to get dressed.” And just like that Jude realized that yet again Cardan was in her apartment and she wasn’t wearing a bra. Unlike last time, though, she didn’t have his oversized sweater on. Should she start sleeping with a bra on? No, that was ridiculous. If anything Cardan needed to stop showing up unannounced. “And I’m not that hungry.”

“I’ll eat the mold, then,” Cardan sighed dramatically.

“You’re rich, order a pizza.”

Jude left Cardan to order his pizza while she went and put on some clothes. When she came back outside she almost ran into Taryn in the hallway where she was leaving her room holding hands with Locke. Gross.

“Was that Cardan I heard again?” Locke asked.

Somehow Cardan heard his question from the kitchen where he yelled, “I’m not sharing my pizza with you, you jackass!” Jude laughed, Taryn frowned, and Locke stood there looking stupid. Cardan came around the corner with his hand over the mouthpiece of his phone and addressed Jude, “You sure you’re not hungry?”

“Maybe a little,” she admitted.

“What do you want on your half of the pizza?”

“I don’t care. Pepperoni? Pineapple?” 

Cardan’s look of horror made Jude laugh again. “You monster,” he whispered before talking into his phone again to complete the order. He drifted off back down the hallway and Jude, not wanting to be near Locke any longer, followed him. When he hung up the phone after reading off his credit card number, he turned around to face her while flicking his card with his other hand. “Pineapple?” He asked. “Really?”

Jude replied with a raised middle finger to which Cardan laughed uproariously. That  _ laugh... _ She wanted to kiss him again. 

The pizza arrived half an hour later. Cardan immediately opened the box, picked off a piece of pineapple, and threw it at Jude’s face. When Locke attempted to reach his hand into the box, Cardan smacked it away and carried the coveted food into Jude’s room. Her room. Her room that had underwear strewn all about again. Oh god.

Ignoring her bra draped over the office chair, Cardan plopped down into it and began eating a slice of pizza. “You should clean your room more,” he informed her.

Jude scowled at him and closed the door behind her. “You should start warning me before you just show up at my apartment!” As she reached for a slice of pizza, Cardan snatched the box back and held it out of her reach. “You asshole,” she said, lunging for the box again only for Cardan to move it out of her reach again with a laugh.

So it was going to be like that, then.

The charade went on like this for a few more minutes before Jude’s foot caught on a shirt lazily thrown on to the floor and she disgracefully fell into Cardan, knocking him off his perch on the chair and sending them both onto the plush rug on Jude’s floor. The air was knocked out of Jude as she landed on top of Cardan. Thankfully the box landed shut and the pizza stayed in its confines. The relief at the lack of a mess distracted Jude for a moment from realizing she was on top of Cardan. The sight of him underneath her sent a thrill through her body--his eyes were half-lidded as he watched her, his hand creeping up to brush her hip. When his fingers touched her skin she wanted to rip his clothes off of him.

“I’d like to kiss you again,” Cardan whispered.

“So do it,” she whispered back, breathing faster than usual.

“I can’t.”

“And why is that?”

“Because if I start kissing you I won’t be able to stop and I can’t be making out with someone that puts pineapple on pizza.”

The moment was ruined. Jude crawled off from on top of Cardan as he laughed at his own stupid words and she rolled her eyes at him. She finally got ahold of the pizza box, pulling out a slice in each hand, and quickly took a bite out of both slices. “Ha,” she said, brandishing her prize. “I win.”

Cardan still lay on the ground, arm curled behind his head, eyes still watching her, smirk still in place. Heat crept into Jude’s face again, pizza forgotten. Damn him to hell. He was giving her what could only be described as bedroom eyes and she was  _ hot  _ all over. Without a word Cardan reached up to gently grab the hem of Jude’s t-shirt and pull her down, rising up to meet her halfway and brush his lips against hers. It was the lightest kiss in history, there and over within half a second, yet… It took Jude a moment to realize she still had her eyes closed but she immediately opened them to see Cardan leaning back again looking at her with eyes on fire.

She wanted to sue him.

Instead she ate her pizza in silence. When the box was empty she wiped her greasy fingers on her jeans and finally acknowledged Cardan’s presence in the room again. “So what now, genius. You got here hours early and now we have nothing to do.”

“Oh I wouldn’t say  _ nothing _ ,” he replied suggestively. One look from Jude had him laughing again. “Well you have a TV don’t you?”

“Let me guess. You want to watch porn.”

“Ooh I like the way you think. But no, darling, I was thinking something more friendly for the baby.”

Jude choked on her indignation. “What baby?”

Looking offended, like the answer should have been obvious, Cardan put a hand to his chest and said, “Me!” 

“Baby?” Jude repeated sarcastically. 

“Yes, darling?” Cardan purred.

Rolling her eyes, Jude rose from the floor and walked out of her own bedroom and into the living room off the kitchen--Cardan following behind like a cat. He stretched, gracing his fingertips against the ceiling, before winking and depositing himself onto the couch cushions. After several minutes of looking, Jude finally located the XBox controller and brought up Netflix (they didn’t use cable) and handed the controller to Cardan. “Since you wanted to watch, you choose.”

“I will use this power for evil,” Cardan said very seriously, like it was a life or death matter. He really was ridiculous. Turned out that “evil” was choosing to watch Criminal Minds--which was definitely not Jude’s cup of tea but she supposed this was what she got for letting him choose what they watched.

It felt like minutes had passed when Jude woke up on the couch with her head resting on Cardan’s lap with no memory of falling asleep. She felt warm and content and well rested in a way she hadn’t for several weeks. One look at the clock by the television told her it was nearly 6:30. She’d been asleep for  _ hours _ and from the theme song playing on the TV speakers, Cardan was still watching the same damn show. They needed to be leaving for her family dinner but she stayed where she was for a second longer--both because she was comfortable and also because, as long as Cardan thought she was asleep, she didn’t have to face the embarrassment of having ended up sleeping on him. Bracing herself, she finally sat up, ran a hand through her messy hair, rubbed at her eyes, anything to avoid looking at Cardan for a little while longer. 

“You snore in your sleep,” he said, the humor in his voice falling short. Jude finally looked at him. There was color high in his cheeks. He looked soft--too soft--calling her to get lost in his eyes or curl up into him once more. Jude had to look away from the intensity of that look. 

Her phone rang. Taryn. Jude answered, grateful for the distraction.

“Hey we’re pulling up.” The “we” in question must have been her and Locke. “Come outside before we’re late to Dad’s.” With no further words, Taryn hung up and Jude was left holding her silent phone to her face--not having said a single word. 

“Well,” she croaked to Cardan, voice still rough with sleep. “Time to pretend to be my boyfriend.”

————

  
  


“You know,” Cardan was saying from besides Jude in the backseat as they pulled up to Madoc’s mammoth of an estate. “You give me all that shit for being rich and you're a rich baby too.”

“ _ I’m  _ not,” Jude shot back, “ _ Madoc  _ is. I hardly see any of that money.”

Cardan  _ hmm _ ed a response like he didn’t believe her. With him looking out the front windshield Jude was granted the opportunity to look at him up close, unobserved. He was clean shaven save for a few stray hairs he missed under his chin. His nose was elegant in a way that noses had no right to be and his hair was so very pleasantly mussed up and hanging in his eyes. Those eyes, too, were as dark as midnight and beckoned her to get lost in the dark. 

She was staring. Not good. Cardan turned his attention to her as if sensing her gaze and she tore it away from him as fast as she could. Though she could feel him studying her, he surprisingly didn’t crack any smart remarks about catching her staring at him. 

The Jeep was put into park and Jude jumped down from the car and began walking to the door, not bothering to make sure Cardan was following. From the corner of her eye she caught Locke whispering something to Cardan that Cardan then brushed off. A prick of anxiety bit at Jude’s stomach at the sight of the two boys beside each other. 

Like the previous week, Jude let herself in. The entryway smelled like home-cooked meals and childhood memories and Jude found herself drifting towards the source of the smell without thinking about it. She forgot to take off her shoes until she bumped into Vivi in the doorway and her older sister gave a pointed look down at her sneakered feet. As Cardan came up behind her she toed off her shoes and tossed them back towards the mat by the front door.

“Well I’ll be damned,” Vivi said. “Cardan Greenbriar.”

“Wait you know each other?” Jude was shocked.

“We were friends in high school,” Cardan replied, not taking his eyes off of Vivi. He flashed those pearly whites at her and Vivi’s countenance broke with a laugh. As Jude watched, Vivi and Cardan embraced in the hug of old friends. “How are you, Vivienne?”

“Peeved at my sister for not telling me who her boyfriend is,” Vivi answered, flashing Jude a look before returning her attention back to Cardan. Jude almost said  _ “He’s not my boyfriend”  _ before she remembered that, for tonight at least, they were pretending he was. The two of them continued to chat like gossiping old ladies at the grocery store and Jude abandoned them to play catch up. In the next room she found an unfamiliar dark-skinned girl with vibrant pink hair speaking animatedly with Oak on the couch. Neither of them noticed her until Taryn and Locke followed her in laughing at something private, causing Oak and the girl to look up at the new party of people as Cardan and Vivi also joined them. The room was not small by any means but suddenly Jude felt claustrophobia closing in with so many people standing in the doorway, so she escaped to a chair by the couch where Cardan followed and perched himself on the arm of the chair.

“Alright,” Vivi said. “Everyone, this is Heather.” She indicated the girl with pink hair, who smiled warmly at the introduction. Jude instantly liked her. “Heather, this is everyone.”

Introductions were made further--Jude introducing Cardan to Heather, Taryn introducing Locke to Heather shortly after Cardan tried to introduce him as “Garbage Can”, Vivi introducing the twins separately so Heather could learn the difference between the two--and Madoc finally came into the room, drawn by the noise from so many young adults crammed into one space.

“Good, you’re all here,” he said. “Dinner is almost ready. Please join us in the dining room.” As soon as he had entered, he exited the room once more. With no option but to follow, the rest of them trailed after him like a line of ducklings. The girls took their spots at the table--their dates taking the empty seats placed next to them--as Oriana swept into the room with Oak in hand after he had washed up for dinner. Again the food was brought out without a word from Madoc and they began to serve themselves. 

“So, girls,” Madoc said, as if he were actually interested in the situation and not just pretending to be, “how did you meet your dates?”

“Comic book store,” Vivi supplied with her mouth full of food.

“School,” Taryn said with a wistful look to Locke.

“Car accident,” Jude stated. At the questioning look from everyone else, she explained how they had met. How she had hated him until, over time and several more run-ins, she no longer hated him. To emphasize their fake relationship she took Cardan’s hand under the table and tried to replicate the look Taryn had given Locke minutes earlier. When Cardan gave her his goofy grin letting her know her face looked stupid, she scowled back at him and hoped no one else saw it.

“That’s very…” Madoc trailed off--not knowing what the situation  _ “very” _ was. “Nice?” 

“It was very surprising,” Taryn mumbled.

“What was that Taryn?” Jude challenged. She realized she was still holding hands with Cardan and her hand was unpleasantly sweaty. She dropped his like it had burned her and rubbed her palm against her leg. 

“It was very surprising,” Taryn reiterated even louder. “One minute you hate each other and the next he’s at our apartment. Did you guys hate fuck or something?”

The outburst was out of character for Taryn. Careful, composed, quiet Taryn. “Excuse me?”

“You know,” Heather cut in helpfully, the anxiety palpable in her voice, “In fanfiction we call that ‘enemies to lovers.’” Her attempts at lividity, however, were sadly overlooked.

“What is your problem?”

“Girls,” Madoc snapped. “Are you really going to fight again?”

“Maybe.” Taryn was acting childish. Absolutely childish. 

“No. We’re not. Stop it, Taryn” Jude said crossly.

“Or what? You’ll have another seizure?”

From the corner of Jude’s eye she say Cardan jump ever so slightly. Unfortunately, Taryn also caught the movement.

“You didn’t tell your  _ boyfriend  _ about your seizures?” Taryn said the word  _ boyfriend  _ like she meant to say  _ antichrist. _

“What is your problem?” Cardan asked softly, like he had meant to say it in his head but not out loud.

“She treats me like shit about my boyfriend but you’re worse than Locke! Have  _ you  _ told  _ her  _ about Nicasia, Cardan?” Taryn’s words dripped venom and Jude had had enough. She stood from her chair fast enough to send it crashing to the floor behind her. 

“We’re leaving,” she informed the room before storming out, Cardan following close behind.

\--------

She wasn’t sure how long they had been walking but eventually Jude found herself at a park collapsing onto a bench. It was well past dark but the street lamps created luminous circles of space. The bench was under one of these circles surrounded by trees. Jude pulled her jacket close to her, fisting her hands in her pockets, and she began to cry. 

Which was embarrassing with Cardan watching. 

For his part, Cardan simply pulled Jude against him and held her like this was easy, like this was normal, like she was a person who cried and he was someone used to holding her. The whole thing was ridiculous and yet she couldn’t stop herself as sobs escaped. When they finally abated, her head still in the crook of Cardan’s shoulder as he rubbed her arms, Jude finally found her voice for the first time since they left Madoc’s.

“Why did you agree to come tonight?”

Cardan was silent for a very long time. In the silence, Jude burrowed closer to him in the chilly night. “When you said family dinner ended in a hospital trip last time…”

_ Oh _ , she realized,  _ so we’re having the seizure conversation now. _

“I thought…” Cardan continued. “I thought your dad was abusive. And I guess I thought I could protect you.” That was enough to make Jude pull away and look at Cardan. “Now that I’m saying that out loud it sounds really stupid.” He laughed in a way that’s not really a laugh.

“Why would you think that?” Jude asked quietly.

Cardan looked down at his feet and rubbed his hand against the back of his neck like he was debating an answer or, more likely, ashamed to admit one. “My dad hated me from the moment I was born,” he said. “I was a reminder of an affair he wanted to forget and so he treated me like I was a curse on the family. Most of my siblings showed me kindness out of pity but I was mostly left on my own for my entire childhood. Sneaking food out of the kitchen while they were all eating because no one had bothered to set out a chair at the table for me. Trying to be best friends with our semi-feral cat because no one else really talked to me. I was alone for a very long time. But then my older brother Balekin started showing me more attention and at first it felt like a miracle.”

Cardan went quiet again. Jude tried to wait for him to continue but curiosity got the best of her and she prompted him forward instead. “But?” She asked softly.

“But then he got violent.” For the first time since Cardan started his story he looked up into Jude’s eyes, looking into her face like he was looking for something. “He beat me. But every time he did, he’d be nice to me again afterwards and… I don’t know. I wouldn’t exactly forgive him, but I didn’t  _ not  _ forgive him, you know?”

As strange as it was, Jude did know. She felt that way with Madoc since she had come to live with him.

Jude didn’t know what to say.  _ “I’m sorry”  _ wasn’t something you said to someone who’s been abused--they don’t want to hear it. They don’t want the pity. So instead she said, “Thank you for coming to protect me tonight.”

“A real knight in shining armor,” Cardan said self-deprecating. 

“Hey.” Jude took his hand in both of hers and he turned to face her again. “You’re too delicate to be a knight in shining armor,” she tried lightly but only got a small twitch of the lips from Cardan. “You’re more of a faerie prince.”

This, finally, got a laugh out of Cardan. “A hated one, maybe.”

“I don’t know, I’m rather fond of you.” Jude’s confession stopped them both short. Cardan looked at her with a question in his eyes while heat crept into Jude’s face. She was still holding his hand. She dropped it.

“What did Taryn mean when she asked if you’d told me about you and Nicasia?” The ground was not interesting enough for Jude to be staring at it as hard as she was. And yet…

“We used to date but she cheated on me with Locke. She wants me back,” Cardan said simply, like he was talking about characters on a television series instead of his own life. “But she can’t have me.”

It had started to snow. The snowflakes were falling slowly, like a dream, and Jude held a hand out to catch one as it drifted passed. In her palm it melted. They sat in silence for a while, Jude leaning against Cardan again--for warmth or for the comfort of it, flip a coin--when Cardan spoke into the silence with a question of his own.

"You could have told me about your seizures, you know that right?" 

Jude shrugged an answer. Reluctantly, Cardan dropped it. 

After another stretch of silence, Cardan began to hum.

_ “Darling can’t you see,” _ he sang under his breath.  _ “I’m a broken man with addictive tendencies and I think…” _

When he stopped short, Jude turned her face up to look at him from where she was curled up with her head against his shoulder. “You think what?”

“Nothing.” But the way he was looking at her didn’t feel like nothing. “Jude, I--.” He stopped, laughed at himself, looked at her again. “What if I don’t want to just be your fake boyfriend?”

Jude's heart did a complicated thing in her chest. Was he serious? Jude let herself imagine what it would be like to be with Cardan and she liked what she imagined. A lot. But it also scared her. He was beautiful, he was funny, he was an asshole. But, she had to admit, he was sort of becoming hers. 

“Do you want to go back to my place?” She asked quietly.

\--------

There was a rush of fumbling hands as they shed their clothes and she lost track of who was removing what article of clothing on which person until suddenly they were both down to their underwear and collapsing disgracefully backwards onto her mattress. Giggles dissolved into whispered words. With hungry kisses and exploratory hands the world started to blur in the way of dreams. She lost herself as the rest of their clothes came off and he kissed his way down her body. His hands were everywhere she wanted them and still she wanted more. There was the crinkle of the condom wrapper, the laughs when Cardan knocked over the open bottle of lube and it spilled onto the hardwood floor, and then…

After a desperate, whispered "yes" from Jude, Cardan finally fit his hips into hers. 

There was an odd sort of pinch as he slowly slid against her and then suddenly they were pressed together as close as they could get and Jude felt herself relax and without her realizing it she breathed an,  _ "Oh." _

"Are you okay?" Cardan's voice was quiet, gentle, and he didn't move until Jude nodded a firm yes. 

When he started to roll his hips she felt herself dissolving in his slow movements. He gently brushed her hair away from her skin and left a trail of slow, open mouthed kisses down her neck. Her hands travelled the plains of his back, feeling his lithe muscles shifting under his skin with every stroke he made. Cardan was being gentle in a way she wouldn't have thought was possible from him and she tried to convince herself that this was just sex, nothing more. Even if it felt more like how she imagined making love would feel.

She led him to his back where she straddled him. Inexperienced as she was, Cardan gently helped guide her hips with his hands until she awkwardly found her own rhythm. His palms were warm where they touched her skin, face flushed, pupils blown wide, breaths ragged, hair a beautiful, beautiful disaster. She leaned down to press her chest against his and ran her hands through his dark hair as she moved. Something in his eyes sparked. And then he was flipping them over again, kissing her neck, her collarbones, her breasts. He held her in his arms, pressed against him as close as they could get, and Jude had the odd sensation of being home--truly home--for the first time in a long time.

She tried not to be embarrassed about the sounds she made. The way his name escaped from between her lips with an air of desperation.

She tried not to pay too much attention to the way her heart skipped a beat everytime he muttered her name like a prayer.

She finally came undone with a cry that might have been his name or might have been incoherent nonsense, and soon after he followed with a gruff, "Jesus Christ." He stayed where he was a moment, both of them breathing heavy, before he finally pulled back enough to see her face. Jude opened her eyes to see him grinning down at her and she managed to return a flash of a grin before her eyes closed of their own accord again. She felt high and delirious and like she was floating on air. Still, she could feel her face split into a goofy smile she couldn't suppress.

"Where's your bathroom again?" he asked quietly from above her.

She made a vague gesture with her hand at her closed bedroom door. "Across the hall," she finally managed. 

Cardan laughed, deep and low and--goddamn her--sexy, before he said, "I really did a number on you, didn't I?" 

"Shut up," she said back barely above a whisper, eyes still closed as she floated in her euphoria. He laughed again and kissed her bare shoulder before slipping off from on top of her and from the bed. She heard the rustle of clothes as he dug through the scattered heap on the floor and finally pulled on his underwear before retreating through the closed door.

Out in the hallway, Cardan was greeted by Taryn returning home. At the sight of him--wearing nothing but his skin-tight boxers with his hair tangled in a very telling way--she stopped dead in the hallway and stared with her mouth open in shock. Cardan inclined his head in greeting and then disappeared into the single bathroom, leaving Taryn standing with her chin to the ground and her eyes nearly popping out of her head.

Jude tried not to fall for the way Cardan held her when they were done. The way his eyes followed her when she returned from the bathroom, his shirt thrown on and the hem down nearly to her knees. She tried not to fall for the way he curled up behind her as they fell asleep. 

She tried not to think about how much she might actually like this boy in her

bed.

She failed.

_ Fuck. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in case you're curious, cardan was singing "tribulation" by matt maeson (it's a very jurdan song) and the rest of the lyrics are "and i think i love you" :)


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> once again i would like to mention that when i write about seizures i’m taking from my own experience which may be different from others. i also want to mention that, though i’ve been having seizures for years now, i have never been in the hospital for them, so if i got things wrong then i’m sorry. hopefully you enjoy the update :)

Early morning sunlight was streaming through the window as the soft hush of morning slowly pulled Jude from sleep. Her legs--exposed beneath Cardan's t-shirt--were tangled up in the blankets, her face smushed against her pillow that also smelled of Cardan, and overall her thoughts were taken over by Cardan, Cardan, Cardan. With eyes still closed, she rolled over in her bed and reached for him, his warmth, the comfort of his arms--only to find empty sheets.

Sitting up in a panic her open eyes confirmed what her empty hands had found: he was gone. A quick lap through the apartment turned up empty of black haired, black eyed boys, and the truth settled in like a stone in her stomach. He had left. Last night meant nothing if he left. Last night was just a one-night stand if he left. Last night was  _ nothing.  _

Jude would not cry. She wouldn't. This was stupid. Hadn't she been trying to convince herself last night that it was just sex? Nothing more? So why now, when Cardan was proving it, did it hurt so bad?

Back in her room, Jude collapsed onto her bed. She was sore--physically after last night and now emotionally as well. She didn't know what to do with herself as she tucked her knees up under her chin and stared at her wall. When her phone buzzed against the nightstand she reached for it absentmindedly. The text read:  _ i had a test this morning and didn't want to wake you. see you later though????  _

Oh.  _ Oh.  _

So he hadn't just left. Last night wasn't nothing then. Right?

Jude texted back:  _ how did you go to school if i'm wearing your shirt  _

Cardan replied instantly. His test must be over already.  _ i went in the nude ;). lol jk i just wore my hoodie, _ he said.

Jude found herself smiling like an idiot.  _ when are you finished with school for the day?  _

Cardan:  _ getting in my car now. Why? _

Jude:  _ come back over?  _

Her phone was silent for several minutes. Anxiety built in Jude's chest until she couldn't sit still anymore. She wandered around the apartment and went through the motions of her morning routine but still her phone didn't ring. She made herself some toast that she burned in her daze but still her phone didn't ring. She choked on a piece of her over cooked toast and still her phone didn't ring. 

When a knock came at the door she figured it was Taryn coming home from last night. She was too tired and too happy to deal with the fight that was sure to come but reluctantly opened the door. Instead of Taryn, though, someone much taller stood in the doorway. Her gaze followed the body up, up, up, until it settled on the gorgeous face of a gorgeous boy with gorgeous eyes looking at her like they could devour her.

"Hi," she said lamely.

"Hi," Cardan teased back.

"I was waiting for you to text me." 

"And I was driving to see a beautiful girl."

"Oh, well let me know when you get there." 

"Behave."

"Or what?" 

"Or I'll have to take my shirt back, which would be a shame considering you look better in it than I do."

“I suppose you want it back,” she said, looking down at the fabric consuming her.

“I was just about to tell you to keep it.” His eyes were burning when she looked into them. Had it not been for how gently he held her last night, the intensity of that look would make her stomach stir. As it was, she found herself wanting to curl back up in his arms again. 

For the first time since she answered the door she became aware of the chill from outside. A thin dusting of snow covered the ground and, if the sky was any indicator, it looked like it would snow again before the day was over. Exposed as she was, she shivered.

Cardan, looking concerned, ran his palms along her arms in an attempt to bring some warmth back into her. “Here, let’s go inside,” he said, ushering her through the door and sliding it closed behind him. "You're not even wearing socks?! Girl, what's wrong with you?" But before Jude could answer Cardan had her swept up in his arms like she weighed nothing and he was carrying her to the couch where he set her down and pulled a blanket around her. Flopping down, he joined her, nearly laying on top of her, and curled around her so their bodies were pressed together. Jude was instantly warm in more ways than one. 

"How did you sleep?" Cardan asked softly.

"Good. Really good. How about you?" 

"Honestly?" He asked. "It took me awhile to fall asleep. You looked so beautiful and I couldn't stop looking at you."

"You were watching me sleep? You creep!" Jude teased as a smile and a blush consumed her face. 

"Well, you were bound to find out eventually. Maybe someday you'll let me watch you shower too."

Yup, Jude was definitely warm. 

"Only if you join me," she purred with a sultry tone.

"Damn. Now it's getting interesting." His voice shook ever so slightly in his response. She wanted him back where she had him last night. She wanted his bare skin against hers and his breath in her mouth and his hands all over and  _ oh god  _ she was in trouble. With her thoughts still spiraling into a very unwholesome place, Cardan kissed her once on the tip of her nose as his hand came up to tangle in her hair. He began tracing circles on her belly with the tips of his fingers that both tickled and excited Jude. She found herself curling her toes under the blanket he had thrown over her. "How are you feeling?" Cardan asked, concerned. Jude, on the other hand, was confused by this sudden turn in conversation.

"Fine?" She said, voice dragging the word up at the end without meaning to.

"I didn't… Did I…?" Cardan didn't seem to know how to ask whatever question he was wanting to. Jude only grew more confused. "Did I hurt you at all last night?" 

What? Oh. _ Oh! _

"You were a perfect gentleman," Jude giggled. Actually  _ giggled.  _ She didn’t  _ giggle. _ What was wrong with her? At Jude's answer, though, Cardan visibly relaxed. "Which was surprising," she continued, "because I had you figured to be a freak in the sheets." 

Cardan laughed, loud and surprised and unrestrained. “I can be, if you’d like.” His wicked smile turned her on more than she’d ever want to admit. Had it not been for the slight soreness between her legs lingering from last night, she’d tell him to prove it. 

Another time, then. 

“Your sister caught me leaving your room last night in my boxers.”

“Wait, Taryn’s  _ home _ ?!”

“Well I don’t know if she is  _ now  _ but she was last night when I went to use the bathroom.”

“Oh God.” Jude put her face into her hands and felt Cardan chuckle beside her.

“Still had a bit of a boner, too,” Cardan laughed.

“I hate you,” Jude said from the confines of her hands. 

“No you don’t. I’m delightful.”

Jude rolled her eyes.

“Given what Taryn was saying at dinner last night she probably thinks we came here to hate-fuck your anger away.” Cardan continued to laugh. Jude wanted to punch him in the face. 

“Stop talking, Cardan. Before I break your pretty little nose.”

“You think my nose is pretty?”

“Cardan!”

“Okay, okay, I surrender.” But he was still laughing. His laugh truly was a magical thing--like music or poetry or some kind of healing magic that puts one at ease. Jude thought that if she could swallow the sound like it was a pill then she’d forever be okay. His laugh, she thought, could probably save her.

Fuck the soreness from last night. Jude rolled over on top of Cardan to straddle him and his eyes instantly went dark as his hands gripped onto her hips. She leaned down and kissed him, deep and desperate and like a confession. Their lips slid together, kiss melting into kiss melting into a bite on the lower lip, and then he was carrying her back to her bedroom with her legs still wrapped around him. Jude could feel him against her thigh before he unceremoniously dropped her onto her back on her bed. He went back to kick the door closed before joining her on the bed. This time when she put him on his back, he stayed there. 

By the time Cardan went home that night, Jude was exhausted and even more sore than she had been before. He kissed her goodbye on her forehead, made some teasing comment about the way she was walking funny, and then slipped out the door. A text from him alerted her when he got home and they texted back and forth until Jude finally drifted off to sleep--wishing he was next to her.

\--------

The next several days went by in a blur. School continued to kill Jude with its workload, the weather continued to be shitty and full of snow storms, Jude and Taryn largely ignored each other. Jude hardly slept, and when she did, she had nightmares that woke her in a cold sweat. Nightmares that, upon waking, she immediately forgot. 

On friday she woke to the heat down too low and the weather outside too cold. Padding across the hardwood floors with her socked feet, she went into the family room and adjusted the heat. Breathing some warmth into her cupped hands, she went into the kitchen to find something for breakfast. She popped a few frozen waffles into the toaster (the breakfast of champions for that morning) and pulled her phone out of the pocket of her sweatshirt while she was waiting for the waffles to pop back up.There were two from Taryn that she promptly ignored, one from Vivi--a picture of her and Heather at a comic book store event the night before--and one from Cardan. Smiling to herself, she opened the message from him.

Everything went black.

Jude came to with her face pressed against the hardwood floor of the kitchen and a thick sticky substance coating her hair. She could hardly register where she was, hardly process the fact of the red of her blood on her hand after touching it to her head, could hardly get her vision to stop swimming.  _ What happened? _

Her tongue felt coated in slime, her nose was filled with a metallic scent.  _ Where was she?  _ Her phone lay near her and she reached for it. There was a number she was supposed to call but she couldn’t call it to mind. There was a conversation open on her text messages but she couldn’t make sense of the words. She clicked the phone icon in the corner and was met with a dial tone. Almost immediately a voice answered. Warm. Male. Familiar. 

“Jude?” The voice said.

She could hardly speak, words were evading her. Finally she croaked out a single, desperate word. “Help.”

\--------

There was a banging on the door, someone shouting her name. She could process she was on her kitchen floor but couldn’t get herself up. Her head hurt, her body ached. She was on her back now, staring at the ceiling. The banging on the door continued for another minute before the sound changed--someone was trying to break the door down.  _ What was going on? _ Something was wrong, wrong,  _ wrong _ . Jude began to sob just as the door finally gave way and a boy with black eyes rushed to her side. His hands were on her bloody hair, he was saying her name, she was crying.  _ He  _ was crying. 

He pulled his phone from his back pocket and put it to his ear. He was speaking but the words didn’t make sense other than their desperate tone.

Minutes later, sirens were blaring outside.

\---------

“Can you tell me your name?” A woman was asking as she shone a light into Jude’s eyes.

“Jude,” she whispered. She wanted to sleep. She wanted to go home. But wait, wasn’t she already home?  _ What happened what happened what happened? _

“Do you know where you are?” The paramedic furthered inquired.

Jude tried to look around her but her neck hurt, her head hurt, everything _ hurt _ . “Home.”

“Do you know who this boy is?” The paramedic asked, jerking a finger towards the boy that had found her on the floor. The boy she had called. He looked wild and afraid and like he would run to her side if it weren’t for the man restraining him by the doorway.

_ Cardan. _

“What was that?” The woman asked. Jude must have mumbled. She repeated his name, clearer. Saw tears on his face as the paramedic continued to hold him back. She touched her hand to her head and was surprised when it came away sticky and red. Was she bleeding?

“We’re going to take you to the hospital, okay?” The woman said. 

Jude made to respond when her throat closed, eyes rolled back, and she was dragged under again.

\--------

Machines were beeping. The bedsheets of the hospital bed crinkled when Jude shifted. She could feel the scratch of gauze around her head as she shifted her head on the thin pillow. Beside the bed, a nurse watched her over the clipboard she had been writing in. 

“Oh, you’re awake,” said the nurse. “Do you know where you are, sweetheart?”

“Hospital,” Jude croaked, not sure how she got there. She vaguely remembered being loaded into an ambulance after waking up on the floor. Vaguely remembered Cardan’s hands on her face, in her hair. One of the machines beeped faster as her heartbeat kicked up in a panic.

“Do you know what happened?” The nurse asked softly. The tag around her neck said her name was Ashlynn. More than anything, Jude wanted to say that yes, she did know what happened. She remembered every bit of it. But she didn’t--she couldn’t. So instead she answered truthfully.

“No,” she responded, tears welling in her eyes.

“You had a seizure,” the nurse told her gently, as if speaking to a spooked animal. “And hit your head. It’s a lucky thing your boyfriend found you.”  _ Boyfriend?  _ “You had another seizure after the paramedics showed up and they rushed you here. Your boyfriend is in the waiting room still. You can see him after the doctor checks you out.”

\--------

By the time the doctor left the room, Jude was fully aware again. There was a fog over her memory of the last few hours but she was present and with herself again in a way that was a relief to feel again. By now she had put together that  _ boyfriend  _ meant  _ Cardan _ and when they asked her again if she would like to see him, she almost said no. No, she didn’t want to see him. Didn’t want _him_ to see  _ her  _ like this. But a strange flash of his panicked face came into her mind with the memory of him holding her, and instead she found herself agreeing to see him.

She raised her eyebrows at him as he entered the room and closed the door behind him. "Boyfriend, huh?"

He immediately looked defensive and mischievous at the same time, sitting in a chair beside her bed. "It felt weird to just call you my friend after I've been inside you and I didn't want to explain to the 9-1-1 operator that you're a girl I hit with my car and then slept with and you may or may not actually hate me, so I panicked and said I was your boyfriend." 

Jude chuckled and shifted again in the bed in an attempt to get comfortable. More than anything, she wanted out of this damn hospital gown. Cardan’s eyes were haunted when she looked back to him. He took her hand in a way that suggested he didn’t know he was doing it, looked at the wall above her head, moved his eyes back to meet hers. He was clearly shaken. Badly.

“You scared the shit out of me,” he confessed barely above a whisper.

“I’m sorry,” she returned in the same voice.

“No,” he said too loudly. He lowered his voice with an apologetic look in response to her wince. “No. Don’t be sorry. You have  _ nothing _ to be sorry about, okay?” 

Jude nodded. This seemed to placate Cardan enough for his shoulders to relax. “Did they tell you if you have a concussion?” He asked, diverting the subject a bit as he touched his fingers lightly to the bandages on her head 

“Mild one, yeah.”

“You hit your head on the counter.”

“I heard.”

“There was blood.”

Jude looked down at her hands and saw small crescents of dried blood under a few of her fingernails. “Oh,” she supplied lamely. Cardan’s eyes followed her line of sight to her fingernails and he took her hands in his again to cover up the evidence. 

“Can I ask you something?” 

“You just did,” Jude said in an attempt at humor. The joke clearly fell short in the tense room.

“Why didn’t you call 9-1-1? Why did you call me?” Cardan finally asked after a long beat of silence.

“I don’t remember calling,” Jude admitted. “I don’t really remember anything.” At this, Cardan gave a tight-lipped nod to her answer. His thumbs were rubbing pleasant circles along her palms. 

“When can I go home?” She asked. Cardan met her eyes with his beautiful black ones and Jude found herself wanting to crawl out of bed to be in his arms. 

“I’ll ask,” he said sadly.

\--------

Walking in to her apartment took more bravery than she expected. Inside she was greeted by the pool of blood on the kitchen floor, the smear of blood on the counter, the bloodied prints on the floor from the hands that had touched her. She wanted to throw up. After closing the door, Cardan moved to block her view of the kitchen. Said her name once, twice, three times, before gently taking hold of her arms.

“Hey, look at me. Breathe. Breathe, Jude. It’s okay.”

She was hyperventilating. Shaking. Nothing felt okay. She closed her eyes and let herself fall forward into Cardan’s arms where he held her--fingers digging into her back--as he continued to utter soothing words to her. She felt him kiss the top of her head, knot his hand in the back of her hair, tuck her head beneath his chin. She was safe, he kept saying. She was safe. She was safe. She was safe. The more he said it the more she believed him until finally the panic attack ebbed away, leaving only soul deep exhaustion in its wake. As if sensing Jude running on complete empty now, Cardan scooped her up into his arms and carried her to her bedroom. Gently, so gently, he laid her down on her mattress and pulled the blankets up over her. He sat there for a moment, running his fingers through her hair, before he made to stand. Without thinking about it, Jude’s hand shot out to grip his wrist and he froze in place.

“Stay,” she begged. “Please stay with me tonight.”

Cardan kissed her forehead, tucked her hair behind her ear. “Your wish is my command, darling,” he whispered.

He curled up behind her and held her like she might drift away as she drifted off to sleep. 


	8. Chapter 8

“Hey, I didn’t think you’d answer.”

On the other line of the phone came the blasting sounds from a video game as someone shot a simulated gun. “Why?” Cardan asked. It sounded like he had his cell on speaker phone. “Cause it’s one in the morning?”

Jude couldn’t help herself–she rolled her eyes even though he wasn’t there to see it. “No, Cardan, because I thought both of your hands had been gnawed off by a giant rat. Of_ course_ because it’s almost one o’clock.”

There was uproarious laughter–deep and male–from the other end that didn’t sound like Cardan’s laugh. His roommate, probably. But if he had heard her, that confirmed her theory about being on speaker.

“First of all,” Cardan’s amused voice cut through the laughter. “The only rat that would be big enough to best me in a fight is an R.O.U.S from _The Princess Bride_ and they don’t actually exist. And second of all, darling, I’m a nocturnal creature, so of course I’m awake to answer your late night booty calls. Now what can I do for you?” Machine gun fire continued in the background from his end, joined with shouting from Cardan’s roommate to _“watch out, dude, watch out! damnit now you’re dead. way to go, geezer.”_

“I just,” Jude began but quickly cut off, unsure of how to proceed knowing that someone else was listening in on their conversation–even if he was clearly wrapped up in whatever violent video game the two boys seemed to be playing. “Um…”

“Hang on, Jude.” There was some mumbling from his end as words were exchanged, then a click like a door being closed, and suddenly the game’s noises were gone and Cardan’s voice was closer. He had taken her off speaker. “Okay I’m alone now, sorry. Is everything okay?”

“I just,” Jude started again and trailed off once more. “I can’t sleep.”

It had been almost a week since her last seizure. A week since Cardan broke down her door to find her on the floor laying in her own blood. Six days since Madoc hired someone to fix the girls’ door, five days since Madoc ordered Jude to move back home until they could get her seizures back under control, and two days since Vivi finally helped Jude convince their father to let her stay in her own apartment. The last week had been exhausting and yet Jude was restless. She would be lying if she said she wasn’t scared after what had happened. 

“Do you want me to come over?” Cardan offered helpfully, and the sincerity of his offer nearly brought tears to Jude’s eyes. 

“No,” she admitted. “No, I want… out. I don’t want to be here right now.”

“Where do you _want_ to be?”

“I don’t actually know.”

A brief silence washed over them, interrupted only by the sound of Taryn’s cat meowing from somewhere in the apartment. Finally, Cardan said, “I’m on my way to pick you up.”

——–

The first thing Jude noticed when she got into Cardan’s car was his wild hair. The perpetually messy curls were somehow even more unkempt than usual. The second thing she noticed was that Cardan was wearing sweatpants that fit him in a very pleasing way underneath a hoodie that some primal part of her begged to steal from him. The third thing she noticed was his smirk at her noticing him.

“Good evening,” Cardan said in a mockery of a stereotypical vampire voice. 

“What, are you Dracula now?” Jude teased.

“I think I’d be more of a faerie than a vampire, actually." 

"Then why the vampire voice?”

“Jude Duarte: ever the critic.”

“Spare me.” Jude tugged the seatbelt across her body and buckled it with some effort–the buckle itself was coated in a sticky substance that was likely spilled soda. She hoped it was soda. “Where are we going?”

“It’s a surprise.”

“Cardan–”

“I promise there’s not immediate danger to your person, if that’s what you’re worried about. Just trust me?" 

Jude searched Cardan’s face for any trace of deceit but came up empty. Hesitantly, she nodded her assent. Satisfied, Cardan put the car into gear and drove down the street like a person who decidedly deserved to have their license revoked. At Jude’s surprised shriek, he laughed, earning himself a scowl from Jude.

"I thought you said there was no immediate danger to my person,” she said.

“I just floored the gas a bit, it’s not like I ran a red light into oncoming traffic.”

“You really are such a terrible driver, you know that?” Jude asked once Cardan had stopped laughing. Instead of a verbal response, Cardan reached for the volume nob on the radio and turned his music up to deafening volumes. As he had done before in the car, Cardan began singing along to the words–the sound more shouting than singing–as he occasionally looked over to Jude to sing parts of the lyrics to her. His face was so openly happy and carefree that something in Jude’s chest tugged on her like a line trying to reel her into him. Watching his lips form the words made her want to kiss him. Hearing his terrible singing made her want to join in. Watching the streetlights flash across his face made her feel free, alive, _happy_. Her mind told her heart that she was right where she was supposed to be.

The song changed and Cardan flashed a grin over to her but soon frowned at whatever expression was on her face. Quickly, he spun the volume back down to near silence and asked Jude ever so gently, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she croaked. Really, nothing _should_ have been wrong, but her chest was aching in a way she couldn’t place. It was the sort of feeling of being happy but fearing it at the same time–a fear that it would end. “Can I play a song?”

Cardan looked as if he didn’t quite believe her answer to his question but nevertheless waved a hand to his phone on the dash in permission for her to pick it up. A cursory search through his music library showed her mostly alternative rock and pop music and loud punk songs, but in his playlists she found one with a promising title of _“Chill Music.”_ She also found a playlist with her name on it. Jude pretended not to see it, even though her heart skipped a beat, and instead clicked on the first playlist.

Khalid started playing through the speakers as Cardan turned into an unlit parking lot in front of a chain of mostly darkened store-fronts. The stereo continued to play even after the car was shut off before finally turning off completely when Cardan crawled into the backseat and opened a functioning door to get out of his crap car. He came around to her side of the car and opened the door for her, holding his hand out to her like some fairytale prince asking a princess for a dance instead of a boy in a dark parking lot on a late night outing in his sweats who had also just clambered around his own car like a jungle-gym.

“Shall we?” He asked. Jude rolled her eyes at his dramatics–eliciting a laugh from Cardan–but accepted his hand and allowed him to guide her out of his car.

“Are you ever going to get your dented front bumper fixed?” Jude asked when her eyes caught on the evidence of their first meeting. She was surprised that even after all that time had passed he still hadn’t taken his car into a body shop. He clearly had the money for it. “Or your door, for that matter?”

“Nah, it pisses my dad off that I’m ruining the car.”

“Makes me wonder if you crash it on purpose,” Jude teased.

“Maybe I do,” Cardan admitted flippantly, his voice at odds with whatever flashed in his eyes. “I do a lot of reckless shit. But crashing into you truly was an accident, in case you’re wondering. Now, let’s go inside before all my precious fingers fall off. It’s cold out here.”

“Are you going to tell me where we’re going now?”

“Well there’s only one place still open right now,” Cardan said, indicating with his hand one of the only lit buildings in front of them. A half burnt out sign above the doors proclaimed the place to be _Ginkgo Garden_ and the smell of Chinese food drifted through the air. Jude inhaled deeply and looked to Cardan for confirmation of food in her near future. He smiled softly before offering her his hand to hold. Somehow, in the dark, it seemed like no big deal to hold onto him. She took his hand and they strode towards the restaurant.

“Why _are_ they still open?” She wondered aloud. Beside her, Cardan shrugged.

“We’re in a college town and they do late night deliveries to the panicked students trying to cram everything into their brain at once?” He suggested.

“Makes sense.”

Inside the front doors they were blasted with a rush of hot air coming from an unseen heater in the ceiling. Jude welcomed it and, beside her, Cardan shivered one final time as if to shake the cold from his body for good. He released her hand to pull open the second set of inner doors for her, and Jude tried not to mourn the loss of his hand in hers. The restaurant’s interior greeted them with green chairs and wallpaper patterned with mandarin trees. Soft music played softly over the sound of clinking dishes coming from the kitchen. Other than the young man standing behind a counter to the left of the door, no one appeared to be in the front house of the restaurant. Cardan exchanged familiar greetings with the smiling guy at the counter as Jude further took in the beautiful and elaborate decorations all over the place. It felt more like a home inside than a restaurant with its cramped but lovingly decorated space. Behind her, Cardan and the man kept chatting like old friends and Jude wondered just how often Cardan came here.

“Jude, this is Harry,” Cardan interjected into her train of thought, confirming her suspicion that he was a regular here. “Harry, this is Jude.”

“Hey, nice to meet you,” Harry smiled at her with so much genuine warmth that for a moment Jude was caught off guard by the open kindness from a total stranger. On its own accord her face seemed to smile back, but something told her it came out a bit more like a grimace. Cardan grinned at her and turned a conspiratorial grin towards Harry.

“I’m afraid Jude doesn’t smile much,” he said.

“You’re such a dick,” Jude remarked.

“She does, however,” Cardan continued, “say sweet nothings such as that to me all the time.”

Jude rolled her eyes as the two boys chuckled and decided it was best to tune them out. When her efforts proved fruitless (Cardan had proceeded to start listing all the “wondrous, heartfelt names” that Jude had “very fondly” called him since they had met for Harry to laugh at in increasing volumes as the names got more creative) Jude caught sight of a sign near the back that read _“Bathrooms”_ with an arrow pointing in the wrong direction. Over her shoulder she caught eyes with Cardan long enough for an exchange of nods–one from her indicating where she’d be and one from him acknowledging that he understood–then ducked into the single stall restroom and locked the door behind her. Sounds from outside the small room reached her through the thick door as if from underwater. Everything sounded distorted and far away. Though she could hear the undertone of Cardan’s voice, all distinct words were drowned out, leaving behind only a melodic quality to his speech. She loosed a heavy sigh and turned so her back was against the door. From this new perspective, she caught sight of herself in the mirror. 

She liked to think that the mirror was hung unusually high but knew the reality was that she was too short to see her reflection below her shoulders. In the mirror she could see the dark circles under her eyes as evidence of her sleepless nights. Not for the first time, she wondered what Cardan saw when he looked at her. Did he see the girl in armor or the girl beneath it? Was she pretty to him? Or were her edges too sharp?

Jude tore her gaze away from her reflection and stepped forward to the sink where she turned her attention to the drain instead. As if on autopilot, she absently reached out to turn the sink handle, cupped some cool water into her palms, and gently splashed it onto her face. Droplets of water ran down her arms into her rolled-up sleeves as she allowed herself to stand there for a moment with her hands covering her face. Finally, she took a deep breath, snatched a paper towel from the dispenser, dried herself off, and walked out of the bathroom to find Cardan playing on his phone at one of the tables.

“All good?” He asked.

“Yeah, I got an eyelash in my eye and needed to rinse it out.” The lie came easily, but then again they always did.

“I ordered some food to go, Harry just ran back to get it for us. I was thinking we could take it back to my place and watch TV? I’ll even let you pick the show, as long as you don’t pick something that sucks.”

“Says the guy that watches _Criminal Minds_,” Jude teased, falling back into their easy banter.

“Hey,” Cardan pointed an accusatory finger in her face as she sank into the chair opposite him and she batted it away like an annoying gnat. “_Criminal Minds_,” Cardan continued regardless, “is interesting. It’s interesting to me how someone can be so fucked up to do the things they do.”

“And why do you do the things you do, Cardan?”

“Because my family didn’t want me so now I must act up to get attention.”

“See? That didn’t take fourteen seasons to explain.”

Just as Cardan made to reply, the kitchen door opened to reveal Harry carrying a large brown bag. Cardan stood and took the food, goodbyes were exchanged, and then Jude and Cardan were walking back into the cold. Before the doors closed all the way, Harry’s voice called out, “It was nice meeting you Jude!” and she waved over her shoulder and tried for a real-looking smile this time. When she turned back around, Cardan was standing with the passenger side door open for her.

“You know I can get my own doors, right?” She said with no real heat behind it.

“Yes, well, I keep getting to the doors before you and it seems foolish to stand and wait for you to open them for _me_.”

“I hate you, do you know that?”

“You’re lying. Do you know that?” Cardan grinned his wicked grin and Jude considered stomping on his toes. Instead, she got in the car. Cardan jogged over to his side of the car and pointed at the window controls as a request for Jude to roll it down for him. She shook her head in mockery, pretending not to understand what he was asking. Cardan gave her a withering look and mouthed at her to roll down the window. With her left hand she reached over for the controls and locked the doors.

“Jude,” Cardan groaned through the glass barrier as Jude began to laugh. “C’mon, my balls are freezing off.”

“Fine, fine.” She unlocked the car. Cardan glared at her and Jude continued to laugh.

Finally the sight of him shivering out in the cold, as well as the beginnings of a snow storm drifting through the air, became too pitiful and Jude rolled down the driver’s side window for Cardan to crawl through. Immediately his hands reached for the heater and he turned to her with a scowl as she laughed. 

“I so want to be mad,” Cardan said as he reached into the backseat to set the bag of food onto the leather backseat, “but your laugh is distracting me.” 

“I’ll stop laughing then,” Jude replied, trying to school her features into a more serious expression. The efforts sent her into a laughing fit again.

“No,” Cardan said softly. His lips curled up into a small smile while he watched her. “Don’t stop. I like your laugh.”

At his confession, Jude’s laughter finally petered out. The sudden silence in the car felt deafening as the two of them sat at stared at each other. The air felt charged with–something. All Jude knew was that if she didn’t look away now, her feelings were going to overwhelm her. 

She looked away.

Cardan cleared his throat as Jude played with the hem of her jacket. Neither of them spoke as he turned on the car, connected the bluetooth on his phone to the stereo. Not a glance was exchanged as the music started up again and Cardan turned to look through the rearview window to back the car out of the parking lot. When the car pulled up to the third stoplight in a row, Cardan broke the awkward silence.

“Do you want me to take you home?”

“No,” Jude whispered. “No, I’m sorry. I’m just…”

“It’s okay.”

Jude resumed fiddling with the hem of her jacket as the streetlight washed over them in green and the car proceeded with its progress down the road.

“I’m scared,” Jude found herself saying.

“I can take you home,” Cardan offered again softly, looking over at her with those dark eyes that she could so easily drown in.

“Not of you,” Jude said. “Just… this whole… seizure thing has had me messed up lately.”

“Understandably so.” Though he still looked concerned, Cardan seemed to have relaxed slightly at her words. 

“I mean… What were you thinking?” Jude continued.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Jude started, then stopped abruptly. “I mean what were you thinking when I called you? When you found me just laying there? Were you thinking _‘oh god she’s so pathetic’_ or–”

“Jude,” Cardan interrupted, stopping her words with a gentle hand placed over her knee. “Please don’t ever think that I’d feel like that.”

“Then what were you thinking?” Until now Jude hadn’t noticed the moisture in her eyes. She tried to hold the tears back, but Cardan noticed them anyway and pulled over onto the side of the road. As the car rolled to a complete stop, all of Jude’s emotions finally poured over and she was crying, she was crying, she was crying. Distantly she registered Cardan’s fingers brushing against the backs of her hands. He asked a question, asked if it was alright to touch her, and took her hands in his when she nodded. Gingerly, he cradled her hands in his. Reached out to wipe away the streams of tears rolling down her cheek. Whispered to her until his voice finally reached her and she began to calm down. His thumb was rubbing soft circles into the back of her hand as his other hand trailed gently through the hair framing her face. Slowly, slowly, Jude came back to herself, back to the car, back to him. She forced herself to look into his eyes because the only other option was to let the shame of her tears consume her. In his eyes, though, was only a gentle understanding. Any judgement or disgust she may have expected was missing from his gaze. The Cardan sitting in front of her was so far away from the Cardan that she had met when he rear-ended her, or the Cardan she had ran into at Valerian’s stupid party. The Cardan in front of her was without armor and she longed to take off her own.

“Do you really want to know what I was thinking?” He asked her gently. Jude nodded, unable to speak. Instead of answering right away, Cardan looked down to where he still held her hand and watched his own fingers draw circles on her skin. His voice cracked when he tried to speak. “When you called me…. when you called me, I had some joke ready to make you laugh or call me a jackass or roll your eyes at me. But then I answered and you didn’t say anything at first and I knew something was wrong. I know you don’t remember, but I do. You said help. Just help, that was all, but you sounded so scared and my heart started beating out of my chest. I asked you where you were three times before you were finally able to tell me you were at home and then you were completely silent. I drove like a bat out of hell to get to you, pushing the speed limit by 20 in some areas and daring the cops to pull me over, because there was no way in hell I would stop for anything. I was on the phone with you the whole time, just hoping you’d say something else, _anything_ else, but you never did. I got to your place and… you wouldn’t answer the door, Jude.” He looked up at her, his eyes glazed over. “I have never in my life been that afraid or that desperate to get to someone. So I broke the door in. I didn’t even know I could do that,” Cardan laughed without humor and turned his eyes to look through the windshield. “I was just so goddamn panicked. And then I saw you there, and you were crying, and that was the only way I knew you weren’t dead. There was so much blood, Jude. And you weren’t moving. And all I could think was ‘I can’t lose her. I can’t lose this girl that makes me feel like I’m more than the fuck-up my family has always seen me as. This girl that makes me feel safe enough to laugh without cruelty, who smiles so rarely but so brightly, who calls me a jackass even though her eyes seem to be begging to say something else. I can’t lose this girl when I’m just finally getting to know her.’ All I could think about, Jude…” When he looked at her this time, it was his eyes full of tears. “Was that you had to be okay. Because I don’t know what I would have done if you weren’t.”

Was she crying again? Instinctively Jude’s hand tightened around his and she cradled his hands like he had done to hers. She didn’t know what to say, didn’t know if there was anything to say. She felt useless as Cardan gathered himself back together without a word from her, but then he brought her knuckles to his lips and brushed a kiss across her skin. 

“Thanks,” she whispered lamely. “For saving me.”

“Sorry for breaking your door.”

“I didn’t like it, anyway.”

Cardan laughed, but it was a shadow of his usual one.

——–

At midnight Jude awoke having to pee. _Yuri On Ice_ still played quietly on the television that washed the room in a soft blue light. Empty containers of Chinese food were spread haphazardly around them on the comforter. Cardan was sprawled out on his bed beside her, mouth open slightly as soft noises of sleep escaped him. At the sight of his peaceful face Jude stopped to look at him for a moment. The planes of his face looked softer in sleep–his cheekbones and jawline less like they could cut her heart to pieces, his beautiful mouth so invitingly soft and begging for her to make them smile. And those beautiful black curls of his were a halo on the pillow. He was so heart-achingly beautiful.

She thought she might love him.

The revaluation jolted her out of bed and she rushed to the bathroom while her heart jackhammered in her chest. With the bathroom door closed and safely separating them, Jude tried to reason with her own racing thoughts. Love was a complicated thing. Love was a distant memory that came with her mother spinning her around in her arms and sticky fingers from popsicles and chasing her father around the living room when he snatched her blanket from her. Love was something she chased to get from Madoc, something she found late at night curled in bed with her sisters as they laughed to hide their shared heartbreak, something the morning light seemed to wash away once reality set back in. Love was something that could die, and the thought of losing Cardan hit her like a punch to the gut. For a moment she couldn’t breathe. 

No, she couldn’t love Cardan. But back in his bedroom, when she crawled into bed and he immediately wrapped his arms around her without waking up, she wondered if maybe it wasn’t just possible–but undeniable. 

She felt him shift behind her until their bodies were pressed together and then his soft voice spoke into her hair. "Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she replied a little breathless. “Just had to use the bathroom.”

Cardan hummed a response and was likely already halfway to being asleep again when Jude rolled over onto her other side to face him. His eyes reluctantly opened to look at her, bleary and half open. He really was beautiful. Jude’s chest tightened with want. 

No, she couldn’t lose him. And yet…

“Cardan,” she breathed before she could lose her nerve. “About what you said at the hospital. About you telling them you’re my boyfriend…”

“I didn’t know what else to s–”

“What if I want you to be. My boyfriend, I mean.”

A small, sleepy smile spread across Cardan’s face as his eyes drifted closed once more. He pulled Jude into him more so that her head rested against his chest–planted a kiss on top of her head, and said, “Then I’m yours.”

Moments later he was softly snoring.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this isn’t the most action packed chapter but it needed to be written. plus, the next few chapters are gonna be Wild(TM) so this is like the calm before the storm >:). i know this took awhile, and it may not be as good as the other chapters because i’m dealing with a loss of a loved one right now so writing is hard, but i hope you like it regardless. also, please keep in mind that i was dealing with some serious trauma while being tested for my seizures so my memory of that time in my life is very fuzzy. i wrote all of this to the best of my ability and recollection

Rather than a gentle awakening, Jude was instead forced out of sleep by a smoke alarm going off and the TV remote digging into her spine. Beside her, Cardan groaned at the noise in the apartment and aggressively threw himself out of bed with his eyes still closed before storming sleepily out of the room. She heard words exchanged, windows being opened, and the alarm soon after stopped it's incessant noise. Something was definitely burning.

"Stop trying to cook, man," came Cardan's voice from the hallway as he made his way back to his room. 

Cardan closed the door quietly behind him and turned back to face the bed, jumping slightly when he noticed Jude was also awake.

"Crap, I was hoping you had slept through all that," he said apologetically.

"Unfortunately," Jude replied, finally pulling the remote free from underneath her, "I'm not a heavy sleeper."

Cardan's shoulders slumped forward ever so slightly before he stalked over to the bed to bend over her. His lips brushed her forehead like a whisper as his hand found its way into her hair. He settled down on the bed beside Jude and her breath caught at the sight of him in all his morning glory--the full view of his tousled hair and the pillow creases still fading from his cheek. He was undeniably, heartachingly beautiful.

"How'd you sleep?" He asked, wrapping his arms around Jude's middle and gently bringing her closer to him. She settled against his chest and breathed in the scent of him.

"Mm. Good. It shouldn't be possible for a bed to be this comfortable."

"Alas, it is possible, but it's also expensive as hell."

Jude hummed a response before they settled into a comfortable silence. With her eyes feeling heavy, Jude felt herself being pulled back to sleep when Cardan spoke.

"Hey, so about last night…" 

"What about it?" Jude pulled away from him just enough to see his face. There was a question in his eyes but otherwise a strange sort of guarded look on his face. 

"Were you serious about wanting me to be your boyfriend?"

Jude's face was suddenly blazing. Had she made a fool of herself? Maybe he didn't want that kind of relationship and she had pushed for it and now--

"Because," Cardan continued shyly, "I was serious when I said I'm yours. If you want me."

If she wanted him? Cardan, with his snarky sense of humor and eyes she could get lost in with no hope of return? Cardan, with his surprisingly soft heart and ability to make her feel at ease? This Cardan beside her, looking at her like she was all the stars in the sky... All to herself?

"Yes," she breathed. "I was serious." His usual cocky grin spread across his face and she instantly regretted her words. "God you're gonna be an ass about this, aren't you?" 

"Only for a little while," he said. "And then I'm going to go stand on my roof and yell to the world that I'm yours. It's going to be very embarrassing and probably involve a lot of tears, probably some snot bubbles, the cops will definitely be called because there's a crazy man on a roof in hysterics, but when they show up I'll just start shouting 'She's my girlfriend! I can't believe she's my girlfriend!' and surely they'll understand."

"You're insufferable."

"No," he said, pausing to let his real smile consume his face. "I'm your boyfriend."

"You know I could just end things right now," Jude threatened with no real heat behind the words 

"Yeah but you won't. I'm too damn sexy." 

"I hate you."

"I don't believe you," he teased.

"Good. You shouldn't."

From somewhere else in the apartment came another male voice. "Cardan!" 

"Jesus Christ," Cardan moaned before yelling back, "What do you want?!" 

"I'm ordering food! What are you hungry for?!" 

Cardan let his head loll to the side before turning his attention to Jude. "He's just gonna keep yelling unless I go out there."

"Then I guess we better go out there," Jude said.

Cardan’s apartment (if it could even be called an apartment when it took up the entire top two floors of the building) practically screamed money. Where Jude’s apartment was shaped like a shoebox with only a kitchen, living room, two small bedrooms, and a single bathroom, Cardan’s apartment was a labyrinth of halls and massive rooms and an entire wall in the living room made entirely of windows. The room directly next to his was a full scale library--bookshelves lined the walls and stood sentry in lines down the center of the room. First editions peaked out from behind books falling apart at the binding. New books gleamed next to books so old the name was now illegible on the spine. There seemed to be no organization to the chaos and yet the space looked loved in a way the rest of the apartment didn’t.

When they passed the living room into the open kitchen, Jude saw a screen taking up nearly the whole wall in front of the luxurious couch that was  _ in  _ the ground. The X-Box was still on but left on the game’s loading screen.

In the kitchen was Cardan’s roommate with the evidence of a horribly burnt breakfast strewn about on the counters. The man seemed to be around Cardan’s age. He was tall and lanky but with muscles peeking out from under his shirt sleeves. Sandy blonde hair hung into his hazel eyes and the only word that came to mind at the sight of his face was  _ elegant.  _ He had that almost other-worldly look about him that Cardan had. The kind of beauty that only someone who grew up with money could have. Admittedly, he was handsome, but something about his practiced stillness warned that he was sharper and perhaps more dangerous than he looked. Like a snake with too bright colors to warn about it's venom.

"Jude, this is my roommate," Cardan said. "He hates his given name so we call him the Ghost."

"Why?" she asked. The Ghost smiled warmly at Jude as his eyes assessed her. She scowled and scanned him back but, despite her glare, he only continued to smile at her.

"Gamer tag,” Cardan answered. “It's a whole thing. In freshman year there was a group of us that always got together and played. Our other friends we call the Bomb and the Roach."

"So what's your nickname?"

"High King," Cardan said with a smirk.

"Because you're a royal pain in the ass?" Jude teased.

"No, cause I used to do a lot of drugs."

The Ghost took this as an opportunity to finally chime in. "Obviously."

"Oh, yes," Jude replied sarcastically. "Obviously. How silly of me."

“It’s nice to meet you, Jude,” the Ghost said. “Now, we need to figure out something for breakfast because I’m starving and I burned the eggs.”

Jude eyed the lumps of burned matter in the pan still smoking on the stove. “Those were supposed to be eggs?”

"God, you're mean," the Ghost observed with humor.

Jude glanced at Cardan through the corner of her eye. "So I've been told."

The Ghost laughed with a childish sort of glee before giving her a conspiratorial look. "I like it. I can already tell we're going to be friends." 

"Lord help me," Cardan grumbled under his breath.

  
  


\--------

An hour later they were sitting at some mom and pop diner outside of town. The Ghost insisted they had the best breakfast known to man and so the drive was worth it but Cardan had just shrugged and interjected "the food's alright", which earned him a smack upside the head from Ghost. Jude laughed.

They had stopped at Jude's apartment on the way out of town for her to change into some actual clothes. When she walked back outside, Ghost was halfway into the front seat with Cardan smacking at him repeatedly and trying to wrangle him into the back.

"I want to sit up front," Ghost protested as he swatted at Cardan in retaliation.

"I'm not putting my girlfriend in the back, you fuckweasel," Cardan had shouted back, finally shoving his friend all the way back into his seat. Jude, for her part, pretended she hadn't seen any of it.

"Here's what I'm thinking," Ghost said now as Jude absentmindedly looked over the breakfast menu. "Chocolate chip pancakes, right? Whipped cream, nacho cheese, jalapenos--"

"Dear God," Cardan cut him off. "Please do not eat that." 

"It's not for me, dumbass. I was thinking we could feed it to Locke and see what happens." 

A look of consideration passed over Cardan's face and a laugh burst its way out of Jude. The mental image of Locke eating those disgusting pancakes only made her laugh harder, especially as she thought about him throwing up all over himself.

"Please," Jude said around her laughter, "please do it."

Ghost smiled triumphantly at Cardan and wiggled his eyebrows. To hide the smile trying to spread across his own lips, Cardan covered his face with his hands and his shoulders shook silently with suppressed laughter. "We're terrible people," Cardan said, the words muffled by his hands.

A waitress who appeared to be in her early fourties approached their table with a plastered on smile. "What can I get y'all to drink?" She asked in a charming southern drawl that lacked any warmth. She eyed the three young adults like they were mud tracked in on the carpet but, despite her look, Cardan gave her the same charming smile he had given Jude upon their first meeting. Now that she wasn't distracted by his assholishness and her anger at the accident, Jude could admit it was a smile that could make anyone go weak in the knees.

"I'll have an orange juice, please," Cardan practically purred. Whatever he was doing seemed to be working because the waitress had begun to smile and fiddle with her hair like she was smitten with him. Jude didn't know if she should laugh or punch someone. She glanced over at Ghost across the table and saw him covering his mouth to hide a smile. Catching her watching him, he shifted his hand to block his mouth from the waitress’s point of view and mouthed "MILF" before pointing to Cardan and winking. Unable to help herself, Jude snorted hard enough to choke on her own spit. The waitress scowled at her.

"Uh, I'll have a Coke," Jude said with a smile that only made the waitress scowl more.

"Coffee for me, please," the Ghost blinked up at the waitress in a way that made her roll her eyes before walking away.

"I hope you guys know she's gonna spit in your drinks now," Cardan claimed as he reached across the table to grab the basket of jam packets and began stacking them into some sort of structure.

"Why the fuck were you even flirting with her?" Ghost laughed. "You have a girlfriend now."

"I was trying," Cardan growled, "to get her to like us so we didn't get spit in our food."

"Looked to me like you were trying to get her into bed. What do you think Jude?"

"I think I might have competition," she joked.

"Oh please, no one could compete with you," Cardan stated. "You, Jude dear," he flashed her that knee-weakening smile, "are one of a kind."

"Gross, you guys ruined the fun," Ghost observed as the waitress came back and slammed their drinks onto the table hard enough to spill drops of soda onto Jude's lap. 

"What do you want to eat." It was a question, but the waitress said it like a demand.

They rattled off their orders one at a time and she scribbled them down. "Is that all?" She asked, already starting to walk away from the table.

"Uh, yeah?" Cardan said uselessly.

In Jude’s back pocket her phone began buzzing. The screen flashed with an unknown number. Confused, she excused herself from the table where the boys were still making jabs at each other and laughing. Cardan watched her go with a question in his eyes but otherwise said nothing. Reaching the hallway with the bathrooms, Jude finally answered her phone before it could go to voicemail.

“Hello?”

A perky woman’s voice said on the other end, “Jude Duarte?"

“Um, yeah?”

“Hi. I’m with Dr. Moon’s office,” the woman said, naming Jude’s neurologist. “I see we have you in the schedule for next week but we had a cancellation this morning and we’re wondering if you would like to take it? The appointment is in two hours.”

Knowing Madoc, he had probably pulled some strings to get her in earlier. Jude ground her teeth in frustration but had to admit that the sooner she got to the appointment, the sooner it would be over. “Sure, sounds good.”

“Wonderful!” The woman said with too much enthusiasm. “We’ll see you then!”

Jude clicked the end button on the call and went back to the table in time to see Ghost shoot a straw wrapper across the table into Cardan’s face.

“Hey,” she said softly to Cardan. Ghost, taking the hint that something serious was about to be discussed, excused himself to the bathroom, leaving the two of them to talk. “I have… kind of a big favor to ask.”

“Okay, anything you need,” Cardan’s voice was calm, though there was worry in his eyes as he reached across the table to take her hand.

“Could you, uh… could you drive me to a neurologist appointment later today? I can’t drive anymore because of… everything. But you can just drop me off and if you don’t want to pick me up then I can call Viv--”

“No.”

“What?”

“I’m not just gonna leave you there, Jude, I’ll go with you and stay until you’re done.”

“You don’t have to do that.” Jude’s eyes fell to the table where their joined hands rested as Cardan began tracing circles on the back of her hand with his thumb.

“I know I don’t.” Gently, Cardan tucked his free hand under Jude’s chin and tipped it up so she could meet his eyes. “I want to, though.”

Jude hesitated. She was so used to doing everything on her own, never accepting help from anyone other than sometimes her sisters. Letting Cardan into her life was starting to feel like a mistake, like inviting the world to hurt her. What was she thinking, getting into a relationship with him?

“Jude,” Cardan said gently, saying her name like it wasn’t the first time he’d said it in the last few moments. “I can see you spiralling.”

"Sorry," she mumbled, a little breathless.

"Don't be sorry, dear. Just… let me be there for you?"

Jude searched his eyes and found nothing but sincerity. The longer she looked at him the more his features softened into an almost-grin that tugged at her heart strings. She had to admit… letting Cardan be there for her wasn't the worst thing in the world. And having him there would ease her own anxiety.

"Okay," she answered quietly.

"Okay," he repeated as he leaned in closer to her. They were inches apart and he was going to kiss her and she was going to kiss him back, right here in public for anyone to see.

"Are you guys done now? There's a creepy old dude in the bathroom that wouldn't stop bugging me," the Ghosts voice snapped Jude out of the moment and Cardan reluctantly leaned back, though he kept their hands joined under the table.

"You suck, dude," Cardan said. "But yes, we're done."

\--------

The inside of Dr. Moon’s office was almost as nice as Cardan’s apartment and Jude found herself wondering (not for the first time) why doctors' offices were always decorated like a showroom for an expensive furniture store. It definitely added to the sterile vibe you want in a medical office, but it also made her anxious to sit in the fancy waiting room and feel like she shouldn’t be touching anything. They had gotten to the office a little too early, even after the detour to take Ghost home, and were now sitting in silence. Cardan was flipping through some magazine while tapping his feet to the song playing faintly from behind the reception desk. Every once in a while he would show her the page he was on in the magazine and make a joke that she distantly registered. After the third picture, Cardan calmly set the magazine down on the table with a sigh and rose from his seat. Jude was about to ask what he was doing when he swiveled his ass around and sat down in her lap.

“Cardan?”

“Yes, dear?”

“What are you doing?”

“Easing your anxiety. You know, like a therapy dog.”

“Your boney ass is crushing me.”

“My ass is not boney, you take that back.”

A robust nurse walked through the door by the reception desk at that exact moment and thankfully pretended that everything was normal. “Jude Duarte? We’re ready for you.”

“Okay,” Jude said with a smile as she attempted to shove Cardan off of her. Before his weight lifted, however, he took the opportunity to further torture Jude’s legs with his protruding ass bones. Jude shot him a venomous glare as she finally got to her feet and he only smiled at her innocently.

“Go back to reading your magazine,” she said before following the nurse behind the door into the offices exam rooms. Jude took in the nurse’s scrubs and cringed at the bright yellow top that assaulted her eyes and made her head ache. As they came up to the little nook with the scale and other basic medical equipment, Jude schooled her features so the nurse wouldn’t see her face and think Jude was being rude.

“Alright, step up onto the scale so we can get your weight,” the nurse, who’s name tag read  _ Claire, _ said kindly.

“Should I take my shoes off?”

“Yes, if you could please.”

Nurse Claire took Jude’s weight, checked her temperature and pulse, measured her height, and finally led her to the doctors personal office with a smile. 

“The doctor will be with you in a moment,” Claire said with another smile before sliding the door mostly closed. Once again, Jude found herself waiting. There was a rubber band ball at the edge of the side table closets to her that she began fidgeting with just to have something to do when the door suddenly flew back open and admitted Dr. Moon. Startled, Jude lost her grip on the ball and watched as it rolled under the table.

“I’m so sorry,” she stammered.

“Oh, don’t be sorry,” the doctor laughed, “that’s what it’s there for.”

The last time Jude had been in this office she had been eight years old. She remembered feeling so small beside Madoc, so lost beside him in that first year of living with him. They went through weeks of EEGs and MRIs and blood tests only for the doctors to tell her they didn’t know what was going on. Eventually they came to a diagnosis: psychogenic non-epileptic seizure disorder. A fancy way of saying “the death of your parents fucked you up so bad that now you have seizures due to PTSD”. Therapy and medication and several years passing had made the seizures stop until Jude got a traumatic brain injury playing sport in high school and the diagnosis changed from “non-epileptic” to “epileptic”. The seizure meds she was again put onto took care of the episodes and she was seizure free once more. Until now.

“So, Jude,” Dr. Moon said as he settled into the leather chair behind the desk. His hair had greyed since the last time she was here. His storm grey eyes now squinted at her through rimless glasses and new wrinkles lined his lightly tanned skin. “I see from your file that it’s been a long time since we last saw you in here. Why don’t you tell me what’s going on?”

Jude’s mouth was suddenly dry, but she forged on. “Um,” she cleared her throat, shifted her weight in the seat, looked down at her hands in her lap. “My, uh, my seizures started again after several years of not having any. The first one was at my dad’s place and I was taken to the ER. The second one happened in my apartment. I, uh, I hit my head pretty bad and my… boyfriend,” she hesitated on the word, wondering if she should have referred to him as her friend since they hadn’t been dating at the time of the incident, “found me on the ground bleeding.”

Dr. Moon’s face looked thoughtful as he listened and when Jude finished recounting the details, he nodded sagely and leaned forward in his chair. “Jude, I think we’ll start off with an MRI today and then, since we don’t know if this is a relapse of your PNES or epilepsy, I’m gonna recommend that we set you up for an appointment in our other office for some EEGs. I’ll recommend one be done in-office and then we’ll set you up with a 72 hour one that we can send you home with. But until then, we’ll increase your dosage and see if that helps. Once all the results get in, we’ll meet up in this office again and go over all of it with you. How does that sound?”

Terrible. “Sounds great,” Jude forced out with a false smile. Being strapped up to wires and wrapped up in gauze around her head and having a small device strapped across her chest for three days was not something Jude was looking forward to. She had thought she was done with that.

“Excellent, I’ll let our MRI tech know you’re coming back and then we can send you on your way for today. Are you wearing anything metal on your person?”

Jude, having suspected they would want to do an MRI today, had chosen her clothes to be button and clasp free. “No.”

“Very good. If you would like the wait in the waiting room while we get everything set up then my nurse will retrieve you when we’re ready.” Dr. Moon opened the door to his office and held out his hand in invitation for her to exit.

Cardan was pacing between the windows when Jude walked into the waiting room. At the sight of her, his steps halted and he raised a curious eyebrow at Jude. “That was fast,” he said with a question in his voice.

“They’re setting up the MRI machine.” Instinctively, Jude wrapped her arms around her middle at the thought of being in that machine, even for just a few minutes. She hadn’t dealt well with small spaces since a night many years ago full of blood and sirens and coroners and…

Someone else’s arms went around Jude and held her in a tight embrace. She forced herself to take a deep breath, inhaling the now familiar smells that made up Cardan. Distantly she registered his hand in her hair as he gently wrapped some of her slight curls around his finger. 

“Want me to go back there with you?” Cardan suggested. All Jude could do was give a small nod of her head against his chest. With one last deep inhale, Jude peeled herself away from Cardan and reached for his hand to hold onto. It was hard to meet his eyes with the images of a night long past flashing through her mind. Still, she gripped his hand for support and he gave her fingers a small squeeze.

By the time the nurse came to collect her again, Jude had put herself back together and steeled herself for what was to come. Silently, with Cardan’s hand still firmly in hers, Jude followed the nurse to the back of the building where the MRI suite was. Papers plastered on the door and wall gave warnings and notices and all the other necessary disclosures for the rooms’ use. Jude settled onto one of the few chairs lined out in the hallway and watched the nurses’ retreating form. A few moments later a door next to the MRI room opened and a pretty blonde girl walked out with a smile. She was shorter than Jude, with flashing blue eyes, and she balanced on small heels.

“Jude?” The woman asked sweetly.

“Yeah,” Jude breathed.

“Hi, I’m Laney. If you’ll follow me into the room then we can get you all set up. Are you wearing any metal jewelry or clothes with metal clasps?”

“No.”

“Perfect, you won’t need a gown then.” Laney swept open the door into the MRI room and Jude’s heart beat a little faster when she got a peak of the machine. The room itself was unnecessarily large for only containing the one machine and the front wall was partitioned with a huge glass window leading into the tech room where Laney and Cardan would be watching her. Forcing one foot in front of the other, Jude came up to the table and paused.

“So Jude this is pretty easy and completely painless.” Laney fidgeting with wires. “We’ll just have you lay down and remain very, very still so we can get these pictures done as quickly as possible. The machine itself is pretty loud so we have some headphones here for you,” at this, Laney waved some of the wires in her hands into the air. Sure enough she held an odd looking pair of earbuds. “We have Spotify Premium to play whatever you want. And if anything goes wrong or you have a question or anything else, there’s a little button right here that you’ll be holding,” she waved the other wire in her hand, “that you can push to alert me. Sound good?”

Jude felt like she was choking. “Yes,” she managed.

“Fantastic! Let’s get you situated.”

Jude shot a glance to Cardan leaning in the doorway with his hands in his front pockets. Sensing her unease, he stepped forward and offered her hand to help her onto the table. He gave her a reassuring smile as the MRI tech rearranged Jude’s limbs on the table and messed with the technology of the machine. 

“Okay, now we’ll be in the next room right over there,” Laney explained with a gesture towards the window on the front wall. “This shouldn’t take too long but it’s important you remain as still as possible, okay?”

Jude gave a small nod. It was all she could manage.

“What music would you like me to play?”

“Oh, please let me choose,” Cardan said mischievously. Through the corner of her eye, Jude could see Cardan giving her a devilish grin. She sensed she might end up regretting it, but she agreed to let him pick the music. Besides, her mind wasn’t functioning enough for her to think of anything herself.

Cardan and Laney went to the other room. The door clicked shut. The machine started buzzing. With shaking hands, Jude put the headphones into her ears and then went completely still as a small light in the machine came on. 

“We’re gonna start now, Jude,” Laney said. Jude didn’t respond.

Just as Jude’s nerves were fraying to their edges, a song started playing in her ears. It didn’t drown out the machine, but it made the noise more bearable. She was trying to remember how to breathe-- _ inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale-- _

The chorus of the song began to play and Jude’s breath caught with familiarity. Memories of Cardan’s arms around her and the buzz of alcohol in her veins and the feeling of standing on a cliff's edge came to Jude’s mind as the song they danced to that night in the bar filled her head. She closed her eyes and lost herself in the memory of that night--of Cardan’s gentle touch. His smile, the walk home, the feeling of his jacket around her in the cold. Her breathing came easier now. She no longer had to think through the mechanics of taking in air, she felt her muscles start to relax. The songs continued in a playlist of music he’d played in the car with her, songs she heard him humming, songs he knew she liked. Jude couldn’t help it, a small smile spread across her lips as the last of her anxiety dissipated. Her heart felt like it was going to burst from the feelings bottled up inside her. Still, she let herself get lost in the music.

Sometime later, Laney’s voice came into her ears, “You’re all done Jude. Good job”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so this is the shortest chapter ever but here ya go

Ghost let Jude into Cardan's apartment the next night. She had been about to go to sleep when her phone buzzed with a message from Cardan:  _ come over.  _ A message that was shortly after followed by one word:  _ please. _

She called an Uber.

She exchanged no words with Ghost, just took in his solemn face, his sad smile, and gave him a small nod in greeting before rushing to Cardan's bedroom. At the door, she knocked softly. No answer. 

"Cardan?" She asked gently. She might have imagined the small hum made in response but she still took it as invitation to step in. His room was dark--the curtains closed and all the lights off--and it took a few seconds for her eyes to adjust from the dim lighting in the rest of the apartment. 

On the bed was a dark mass. Cardan was somehow sprawled out and curled up at the same time. He might have been sleeping if not for the small choked sounds coming from inside his chest.

"Cardan?" Jude repeated.

He shook his head, tear tracks on his face catching the light from the open doorway. Without another word Jude closed the door and crawled into bed with him. Immediately he pulled her into his arms as he continued to cry. It was the kind of crying that demanded to be audible and yet he still held in the sounds desperate to leave his chest. Jude pulled his head into the crook of her throat and stroked his hair while he shook. 

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Another shake of his head. His arms squeezed her just a little bit closer. 

"I'm here, Cardan," Jude whispered into his messy black hair. "I'm here."


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tragic backstory, anyone? trigger warning for murder and shots to the head.

Morning came at a harsh awakening when, besides Jude, Cardan woke with a shout. Jude was instantly alert, looking around the room for any threats while unconsciously grabbing onto Cardan’s hand. When she turned her attention back to him, there was a glazed sort of look in his eyes. Like he wasn’t fully awake, or fully aware.

“Cardan?” Jude croaked, her voice still finding its way back to her after sleep.

“Nightmare,” was Cardan’s only reply. He flopped back down onto the bed and curled onto his side, wrapping his arm around Jude’s waist and gently guiding her back down beside him. She threaded her fingers through his mussed up hair in an attempt to calm the shaking of his body.

“He died yesterday,” Cardan choked, so quiet she almost didn’t hear him. But her hands stilled. Cold ice washed its way through her veins.

“Who died?”

“My brother. Balekin. There was a car accident.”

“Isn’t he the one--?” Jude began to ask but cut off.  _ Isn’t he the one that abused you?  _ didn’t really seem like a question you could ask someone.

Nevertheless, Cardan knew where she was going with the question. “Yeah,” he replied. His voice sounded hollow, like everything inside him had been carved out. Jude didn’t really know what to say.  _ I’m sorry? _ Is that what you said when someone’s abusive brother died? Jude knew better than anyone how complicated family relationships could be yet she still found herself at a loss for words.

“My sisters are arranging the funeral. My dad won’t talk to anyone. It’s all so fucked,” Cardan said. “And I don’t even know why I’m so fucking upset. Balekin was a dick, he made my life hell, but he was my fucking brother, you know?”

“You can miss someone who hurt you,” Jude replied softly.

“Yeah. I guess.”

“What… what can I do?”

“Can you just…,” Cardan trailed off, as if not sure if he should continue.

“Just what?”

He sounded defeated when he whispered, “Stay with me.”

Jude gently squeezed him and he seemed to further melt into her embrace. “I’m not going anywhere.” 

They missed classes. Cardan mostly slept. Jude took to wearing Cardan’s t-shirts and workout shorts when her own set of clothes became too dirty to wear. For a week they isolated themselves in his apartment, ordering in food, watching movies in his room that he barely paid attention to. After the first few days, Jude would coax him out of bed for a few hours to watch television in the living room or play video games that he beat her at every time, even though he was barely there to play them. Cardan had become a shell of himself. He only drank water when Jude asked him to, only ate small amounts of food when she offered him a plate. But despite how he’d seemed to crawl away into himself, Jude knew he was grateful for her being there. She could tell it in the way he would grab for her hand and hold onto it like a lifeline. She could tell it in the way he would just look at her for several seconds while he ignored the TV. She could tell it in the way he kissed her without a word.

When the day of the funeral came, Jude woke up to find Cardan sitting at the foot of the bed in the middle of the night. She crawled over to him, the shirt she had borrowed from him riding up passed her thighs, which caught Cardan’s attention enough for him to place his hand on her exposed thigh as she settled in beside him. But then he leaned his head against hers and began to cry like he had that first night. Jude tucked his head against her chest and tried to make soothing sounds as she held him. When he finally spoke, just to say her name, Jude knew what he was asking before he said it.

So in the morning, when they woke up for good, Cardan got ready for the funeral before driving Jude back home for her to put on a black dress and a pair of flats. He was once again a shell of himself as he drove them to the cemetery, but the whole way there he was gripping her hand like he’d drift off to sea if he let go.

It was a cold morning, promising snow, as they made their way across the expanses of lawn to where a group of mourners stood. A few of Cardan’s sisters came to say hello and give him a hug. They asked Jude for her name but nothing else. The rest of his family ignored him, like he was a ghost at his brother’s funeral. 

An old man sat in a chair in the front row and at first Jude thought he might be a grandfather. But when he acknowledged Cardan--barked his name, really--Cardan seemed to deflate even more, shrinking to be as small as he could be despite his height. Reluctantly, he slinked over to the man. 

“Father,” he grumbled without making eye contact. Jude felt a small bit of shock at finding out this old man was Cardan’s father, not grandfather. But then she looked around her at the age of his older siblings and knew she should have realized sooner. Cardan shot her a look out of the corner of his eye, a sort of pleading, before motioning ever so slightly with his head that she should go somewhere else. There was shame in his eyes and she knew whatever his father was going to say, he didn’t want Jude to bear witness.

That’s how Jude found herself wandering the cemetery. Lost in thought, she didn’t realize where her feet were taking her until she was almost out of sight of Cardan’s family and standing before two gravestones under an oak tree. Without thinking, Jude found herself leaning against the gravestone behind her as she stared at the ones before her.

She jumped at the feel of a hand on the small of her back but relaxed when Cardan’s mane of black hair came into view. They wordlessly leaned against each other for support as Cardan took in the names on the stones before them. 

On the left:  _ Justin Duarte. _

On the right:  _ Eva Duarte. _

“Your parents?” Cardan asked softly. All Jude could do was nod. “What happened to them?”

Jude gave a small, humorless laugh. “I don’t want to add to your sadness, Cardan.”

“You can tell me.” The hand he had rested on her back slid up to gently cup the back of her head. She felt so small with his hands on her, but she also felt a sense of safety in them. “If you want,” he whispered against her hairline as he gently placed a kiss to her skin. She shivered, and not just from the cold.

“Madoc used to work for the FBI. Well he still does, but this was when he was still just a regular agent and not a director,” she began. Cardan looked confused at the change in subject but let her talk without interrupting. “He and my mom met in college and she got pregnant after graduation. Madoc freaked out and ran off, leaving my mom alone with a baby Vivienne and no money to take care of her. But her best friend, Justin, came to the rescue, as he liked to say, and a year later they were married. A few years later, they had twins. They were happy.  _ We  _ were happy. Vivi looked different from Taryn and I but we never questioned it. After our parents died, we found out that she had known the whole time that she had a different dad, and I don’t know why that, of all things, stuck with me. But it did.

It was family game night and we were all stuffed full of junk food. I don’t even remember what game we were playing. I just remember us laughing while the radio played. And then a song came on that my father loved and he grabbed my mom’s hand and began dancing her around the kitchen while us kids pretended to be disgusted by their love but secretly we were wishing to have that same thing one day.” At this point, tears had begun to fall down Jude’s face, though her voice remained steady. Cardan began stroking circles on her back in comfort.

“You don’t have to finish the story,” he said. 

“I want to,” Jude whispered. “I’ve never told anyone this before.” 

She cleared her throat and continued, “There was this loud bang at the door. I remember all of us froze. The noise continued, and then suddenly we heard the door come crashing in. My mom’s face was completely drained of color and she told Vivi to take us and hide. There was this little hidden door in the wall that led to a tiny pantry we never used except for in games of hide and seek, and the three of us girls crammed into the space. The last time I saw my dad’s face, he was closing the door on us and saying he loved us.

There was shouting. Some terrible noises. It went on for what felt like a lifetime. And then all the noise stopped and there was some sobbing from the other room that didn’t sound like either of our parents. We were all crying too but Vivi had her hands over Taryn’s and my mouths so we wouldn’t be heard. And then there was more shouting as the police came rushing in. We heard a struggle, a gunshot, and then there was nothing but the police talking to each other and into radios and more cars pulling up outside our house.”

Jude fell silent for a moment, trying to catch her breath as the images came back to her. “See, there was a serial killer going across America at the time. He was delusional, thought he was a werewolf, so on a full moon he’d get high off all kinds of drugs and then break into a house and kill the family inside.”

Cardan sucked in a breath of recognition at the story.

“That night,” Jude said, “he chose my family. The FBI had been tracking him for months. It wasn’t until Madoc showed up to the house that he realized who the victims were. And whose child he found hiding in a cupboard in the kitchen. At that point he had remarried, was trying to have kids with his new wife, and when he saw us he thought it was his second chance to be the father he hadn’t been for Vivi. But Vivi never really forgave him for abandoning our mom in the first place. Madoc led us out of the crime scene, told us to cover our eyes. Vivi made me swear I wouldn’t look.”

“You looked. Didn’t you?” Cardan breathed.

“My parents were… torn apart. And the killer was lying face up on the carpet with a bullet through his skull. I could barely recognize my own home underneath all of the blood.”

“Jude…”

“We went to live with Madoc. He tried to be the perfect father to Vivi despite her hatred for him, but he never seemed to know what to do with Taryn and me. The rest, as they say, is history.” Jude felt like there were no words left in her.

“I’m sorry,” Cardan said softly. 

All Jude could do was shrug as Cardan wiped away her tears. “I survived,” she managed in a whisper.

After the funeral was over, they went back to Cardan’s house and collapsed in his bed still wearing their funeral clothes. They wrapped around each other quotation marks and fell asleep with their grief as, outside, snow began to fall.


	12. Chapter 12

Cardan’s bedroom door opened with a flourish and spit out the Ghost looking like he hadn’t changed his clothes in days despite his wet hair suggesting a recent shower. Without pause, Ghost flopped down onto the bed between Jude and Cardan and let out a great huff into the pillows.

“What the fuck are you doing in my room?” Cardan asked sleepily as the disturbance woke him from his late afternoon nap. Jude set her phone down on the nightstand beside her and poked Ghost like he was a dead body.

Dramatically, he flipped himself onto his back and smacked Cardan in the face in the process. “The two of you have been wallowing for two weeks, and I respect that you’re in mourning, but it’s time you got out of this damn apartment and coped like any self-disrespecting person in their twenties would do.”

“What are you talking about?” Cardan asked as he attempted to pry Ghost off of where he was now cuddling Cardan.

“You’re going to drive sweet Jude here back to her apartment where she can change out of your god awful workout clothes and then the three of us,” Ghost paused to throw his other arm around Jude, “are going to a fucking bar.”

“I don’t know if I really--,” Cardan began.

“I don’t care.” With this, Ghost gave Cardan a smooch on the cheek, threw a wink in Jude’s direction, and then left with as much drama as he had entered with.

“I really hate him sometimes,” Cardan grumbled as he wiped away Ghost’s kiss with a grimace. “But honestly it would be nice to get out.”

“Okay,” Jude said simply.

“You don’t have to come if you don’t want to.” Cardan’s expression suggested he was hoping she’d want to come.

She gave him a real smile and answered honestly, “Yeah, it’d be nice to get out. And to put on some real clothes.”

Cardan laughed and leaned over to kiss her cheek. “Then let’s go to a fucking bar, as Ghost so astutely put it.”

Taryn was in the apartment--without her annoying ass boyfriend, thank god--when Jude came home to change her clothes. The twins exchanged a glare but otherwise ignored each other as Jude made her way to her bedroom. She had already showered that morning at Cardan’s so now only needed to throw on some clothes and do something with her mass of curly hair. Digging through her closet, she came out with a pair of black skinny jeans, knee high boots, and a yellow crop top Taryn had given her that was decorated with various fruits. After dressing she ran a comb through her hair and decided to just leave it down for the night. As a last thought, she threw on a bit of mascara before leaving the apartment and running down the outdoor stairs to climb back into Cardan’s BMW. Surprisingly the Ghost had stayed in the backseat this time.

"Whoa," Cardan whispered as he took in Jude's outfit. He didn't seem to notice he had spoken but his eyes scanned her reverently from head to toe before meeting her own gaze. His eyes were alight as she gave him a slow grin.

"I think this is the first time I've seen you at a loss for words," she teased.

"I think you're shorting out my brain," he finally said. "Fucking  _ hell  _ you look beautiful." 

Jude felt herself blushing all the way to her collar bone. The longer Cardan looked at her like that, the hotter she felt.

"So, ummm," Ghost interjected, making Jude and Cardan jump at the sudden reminder that they weren't alone. "Can we go now or do you two need to go upstairs and like… take care of this?" 

Now Jude was blushing for a different reason and she couldn't explain why she was filled with the urge to smack Ghost, but she was also beginning to suspect this was a normal symptom of being around him. With a final grin in Jude's direction--a grin that somehow felt like a promise--Cardan started the car.

They ended up at the same bar as before and had to do a few laps around the parking lot to find a parking space. Finally, Cardan squeezed his shitty car between two trucks that were clearly compensation for some rednecks and piled out of the car as best they could in the narrow space. It was Friday night in a college town so, of course, the place was packed.

Inside they were greeted with someone’s squeaking rendition of an Abba song. Ghost let out a loud groan at the same time Cardan laughed uproariously.

“Fuck, it’s karaoke night!” Ghost shouted over the noise.

“Then I guess we better get very drunk,” Cardan responded through his laughter.

They were indeed very drunk. They had turned karaoke into a drinking game. Every time one of them wanted to stick an ice pick into their ears because of the horrible singing, they took a shot. Everytime someone in the crowd shouted “Yes bitch!” to a friend on stage, they took a shot. With every sip towards being wasted, Jude became more and more transfixed with Cardan’s increasingly disheveled hair. It was like the hair itself was drunk, tumbling all over the place and hanging in his face. They’d take a shot, he’d rake his hands through his hair, and Jude’s heart would do traitorous things in her chest. Who the  _ fuck  _ let this boy be this hot?

He was saying something to her. Shit, Jude was drunk.

“What?” She asked.

“I said,” he purred, leaning into her personal space so that his lips were so, so close. “That you should get up there.” He indicated the stage and Jude’s stomach dropped.

“Why the hell would I do that?”

“I’ll do it after you,” he promised with a smile.

“Doesn’t mean I’m gonna do it,” she returned with a smile of her own. 

Cardan leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her mouth. Jude felt like she could drown in his kiss and happily do so. She thought she could happily drown in him. 

“Okay fine,” she relented.

Cardan laughed, “I wasn’t even trying to convince you, I just wanted to kiss my beautiful girlfriend.”

_ Girlfriend girlfriend girlfriend  _

“Let’s make a deal, Greenbriar,” she said, rising from her seat to settle sideways in his lap. “We’ll both sing a stupid karoake song and Ghost here,” at the mention of his name Ghost looked drunkenly over at them and smiled like an idiot, “will decide who sang better and the loser has to pay for all of the winners drinks for the rest of the night.”

Cardan threw his head back and laughed, exposing his throat to her. She couldn’t explain why that action made something come alive inside her. “Oh darling, you couldn’t afford all of my drinks. But alright, you’re on.”

As the current song came to an end, Jude stepped up to the stage to choose a song. A lot of them were old 80’s rock music but there were some more recent releases as well, though most she didn’t recognize. Eventually she came across a song she knew. Her heart was racing. Why was she doing this? Her singing was mediocre at best. She was about to make a fool of herself. And for what? To prove something to Cardan? Her competitive side was going to kill her someday. She looked back at their table and was about to go back and tell Cardan she was kidding when he smiled at her. It wasn’t a mocking smile but a supportive one, one that glowed with curiosity and wonder at her. She felt the energy of it surge through her body and stepped up to the microphone. 

She sang her way through  _ The Love Club  _ as Cardan cheered her on and not-so-subtly checked her out with a smile on his full lips. Jude wanted to kiss him. The microphone easily detached from its stand and Jude carefully stepped off stage to their table nearby it. She continued to sing, but with more laughter in her voice now, as she went to Cardan and sat in his lap again. Some people hooted and hollered but the noise was lost on Jude as she stared into Cardan’s glowing eyes. His smile was soft, meant only for her. His hands were on her side, holding her to him, and he gently placed a kiss to her cheek. He was looking at her, holding her, smiling at her like she was the only one in the world for him. She felt quiet inside as she finished the song to some scattered cheers around the room. 

Jude found she was at a loss for words. A loss for thoughts, more like, and so she wordlessly passed the microphone to Cardan. He smirked, shifted her off his lap, and bounded towards the stage. 

"Have you ever heard Cardan sing?" Ghosts asked her over the rumble of the bar crowd. "Like, actually sing? Not that stupid shit he does in the car."

"No," Jude answered truthfully. "Why?"

"You might be in for a surprise." 

Cardan picked his song out far faster than Jude had and already the music was starting. Cardan flashed her his signature smirk before he started singing.

_ "The simulation just went bad, but you're the best I've ever had." _

If Jude's singing was mediocre, Cardan's was anything but. Despite his screaming and dying noises in the car when he sang along with the radio, his voice was actually… good.

Which meant Jude was screwed. She must have made a face at the realization because just then Ghost started cackling.

_ "Like hand prints in wet cement, she touched me, it's permanent." _

There was a group of girls by the stage checking out Cardan and whispering to each other but he kept his eyes and his irritating smile on Jude.

_ "In my head, in my head…" _

"I hate him," she said to no one in particular.

"No you don't," Ghost said, "you're just mad you lost."

"You're a dickbag."

Ghost cackled again, "Damn, Cardan was right, you have an arsenal of names to call someone. I like it." He reached his fist across the table and, despite herself, Jude bumped her knuckles against his. 

Suddenly a hand was grabbing the free hand in her lap and she looked up to see Cardan's face just before he tugged her off her chair and onto the stage with him. The girls standing by the stage gave her some nasty looks, but Cardan just kept singing to her. She tried to pull away to get off the stage but Cardan spun her around and tucked her against him and all her thoughts left her. There was only the feeling of his stomach pressed against her back, his arm looped loosely around her waist, and his voice filling her ear. She found herself smiling. 

And then Cardan pulled away and started dancing like an idiot and Jude laughed so hard she snorted. God, she was drunk. But when Cardan offered his hand again for her to join him, she took it. He looked happier in that moment than he had in weeks and Jude had the sensation of falling. 

_ "I can't hide,"  _ Cardan sang, pulling her in close again so their noses were pressed together,  _ "how I feel about you, inside. I'd give everything up tonight, if I could just have you be mine. Be mine, baby." _

Her body stopped moving, her attention completely transfixed with Cardan standing in front of her. Cardan's mouth, Cardan's eyes, Cardan's hands. She wanted to snatch him away and run off somewhere to be alone. She just wanted him. And as he gave her one of his real, goofy smiles, her legs gave out beneath her and Cardan was there pulling her up against him. She wrapped her legs around his waist and he finished his song before pressing a hot kiss against her lips. The applause for Cardan's performance was louder than it had been after hers and she knew without a doubt that she had lost their bet. But she couldn't bring herself to care when Cardan was still kissing her like that.

Cardan didn't let go of her until they were back at their table, and even then he settled down into his chair with her still in his lap. Her legs were still around him and she buried her face into the crook of his neck to breathe in the scent of him. His various earrings tickled her skin but she only buried herself deeper. His arms were a solid wall around her. She was safe here with him. She always would be.

"So do I have to tell you who won or is it obvious?" Ghost teased. 

Finally, Jude pulled away from Cardan enough to look at their friend. "It's obvious, jackass, but you don't have to rub it in."

As Ghost laughed, Cardan gently tipped Jude's head back towards his. "You were really good though."

"Oh, please, no I wasn't," she said with a blush.

"All I could think about while you were up there was how badly I wanted to kiss you," Cardan whispered, so close she could feel his breath against her lips. 

"Just kiss?" She breathed. 

Cardan smiled a wicked smile and looked at her lips. "Why, Jude? Having dirty thoughts?" 

"Maybe." The word came out in a whisper as Cardan leaned in to kiss her again. The kiss was desperate, one after another after another, and then his tongue slipped into her mouth and his hands slid up her back and--

"You guys are the fucking worst," Ghost said behind them.

Cardan pulled away but immediately buried his head against Jude's chest. "I'm gonna kill him. I'm actually going to kill him."

With a smile, Jude pressed a soft kiss to the top of Cardan's head and rose. She laughed as he shifted in his seat and arranged his legs in a manner that hid what was going on in his lap after that kiss. He stuck his tongue out at her like a little kid as she continued to laugh. 

They took an Uber home. Despite Ghost’s best efforts, he went home without a man or woman for company. They walked into the apartment, arms slung about each other's shoulders, like a three headed monster--still singing a song that had been playing on the Ubers radio. Jude was full of bubbling laughter, Cardan looking at her like she was made of starlight, and Ghost was so drunk that he immediately collapsed facedown on the couch and started to snore. Once in Cardan's bedroom, Jude began trying to take off her boots but her hands didn't seem to know how to be hands anymore. With a soft laugh, Cardan gently sat her on the edge of the bed and pulled her shoes off for her.

"Can I borrow something to sleep in?" She slurred, gripping onto Cardan's shoulder for balance as the world started spinning. 

"Of course, my darling god."

He gave her one of his t-shirts and a pair of shorts. She ignored the latter but pulled the shirt over her head after Cardan helped her undress. With a contented sigh, she laid back in his bed.

Cardan used the restroom and changed before climbing in beside her, the motion waking her from her almost sleep. Cardan was humming as he pulled her into him.

"What are you singing?" She asked as she threw her arm over his hip to hold onto him.

_ "Darling can't you see,"  _ he sang softly. It took Jude just a moment to recognize the song as the same one he sang to her in the park.  _ "I'm a broken man with addictive tendencies and I think… I love you." _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in case you're wondering, the song cardan sings at the bar is "bloody valentine" by mgk bc im trash. and the song at the very end is "tribulation" by matt maeson. i just wrote this chapter because i wanted to write something fun and light hearted and not care about if it's cringey. next chapter will have some steamy nsfw stuff so prepare for that lmao


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